Pokemon, The Crobat Chronicles: Origins
by J-The-Legend
Summary: Directly following after Crobat Chronicles 2: Johto. Several months after Team Rocket's defeat, Joe and Ralph, after defeating the Johto Champion, are left with little to do. But quickly they find themselves on a new adventure. One that delves into both their pasts. Secrets will be revealed. Joe will finally learn who his closest friend really is, but truth comes at a price.
1. Chapter 1: The Warm Up

**Disclaimer: This story is set in a separate universe to the Anime, Manga and Videogame series of pokémon. It is partially based off of the games **Red/Blue/Yellow and the remakes, FireRed/LeafGreen** with various differences. Multiple characters from the games and anime may have altered story lines or completely different ones to the original. This book is a short sequel to my previous stories (The Crobat Chronicles 1: Kanto and 2: Johto) This specific story is aimed around one characters and their origin story. For full understanding as to the events proceeding this story, read the previous books. Some language may be adult or insulting to certain groups. Reader discretion is advised. **

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Dawn arose on another early summer day. The fields outside of Pallet town glowed healthily with the light of the warm soil and dry, comfortable grass. The sky was cloudless and blue, the wind was slow and soothing, and the sun was illumination. And on this morning, in one of the many field, a pokémon battle was beginning.

"Earthquake!" Joe roared. His donphan smashed its powerful forelegs down on the grassy earth, causing it to splinter and crack. The floor shook, and his opponent, a fearless kangaskhan, stood unbothered by the shaking.

"That's it!" His uncle, Walker, cheered. "Now, Thumper, use Reversal!"

The Kangaskhan, who was called Thumper, charged at its opponent, swinging a large arm forwards like a flail mace.

"Roll out of reach, Terrence!" Joe instructed. The Donphan, evidently called Terrence, curled up and rolled backwards with surprising speed, narrowly avoiding a forceful punch from the Kangaskhan. The air around where he had been rippled with the strength of the blow. Walker smiled.

"Well done." He said proudly. "Every time we do this I forget how much you've learned."

"You need to stop underestimating me, uncle." Joe stated with a slightly smug smile. "I didn't beat two leagues by luck alone."

"True." Walker agreed. "Though you have a habit of losing attention now a days." He added.

Joe glanced back at the battle. He hadn't realised that Kangaskhan was charging in for another attack, and Terrence hadn't move out of the way yet.

"Look out, Terrence!" Joe yelled.

The Donphan spotted its rampaging opponent and attempted to stop it in its track, but sadly the dizzy punch that came flying towards his face broke any line of defence he could have put up.

"St-rike!" Walker cheered. Thumper screeched to a halt a few metres away from the plummeting Donphan. Terrence landed snout first into the dirt, his eyes rolling and his face aching. Joe winced.

"That's gonna sting." He muttered.

"Cro." The crobat beside him agreed with a wincing squirm.

Terrence the Donphan rolled himself back onto his feet, but his dizziness wasn't going away yet. Joe cursed under his breath. Kangaskhan had confused him. That would make this tougher.

"You ready to pull him out?" Walker asked, almost too caringly.

Joe shook his head. "No. He can take a few more hits. He's not down yet." He told him.

Terrence attempted to nod in agreement, but only succeeded in headbutting its own legs. Walker nodded.

"Yeah." He said sarcastically. He threw his arm forward. "Thumper, use Mega Punch!" He yelled.

Kangaskhan rushed forwards, a glowing fist racing across the grass field.

"Defence Curl!" Joe instructed.

Terrence curled up into a ball form, his armoured back protruding from the grey spherical shape.

"Now, use rollout! Strike between its legs!"

Terrence began rotating on the spot, before shooting forwards like a cannon ball and striking into Kangaskhan lower waist. The large and rather heavy Pokemon was kicked three feet off the floor before landing on its back in the short grass. Thankfully Kangaskhan was female, so the attack didn't do as much as it could have, but it still hurt. The bruised beast pushed itself up on its stock arms to see the ball of armoured elephant rolling back towards it from the opposite direction.

"Endure!" Walker called.

Kangaskhan tensed in place, prepared for the attack. When it came, it was knocked flat on its back. Terrence rolled over its body and passed by, turning a few metres later and preparing to come back for a third attack.

Kangaskhan began to push itself back up. It was clearly weaker than before, and it seemed to only just be hanging on by whatever energy it had saved by enduring.

"Stop!" Joe called.

Terrence stopped. Walker nodded with thanks to his nephew and withdrew Kangaskhan from the battle.

"A fine attempt today, Thumper." He said with respect. "You nearly had him that time." He clipped the pokeball back to his belt, where five other pokeballs nestled.

Joe smiled and wiped his forehead. His fringe of brown hair flicked as his gloved fingers brushed it away.

Joseph Derek Arthur Glende, known simply as Joe to his friend and family, was a fourteen year old Pokemon trainer born in Pallet Town, Kanto. He wore a black hoodie with a grey t-shirt underneath and a set of blue jeans, red trainers and a black and red hat, with a white pokeball logo on it. His shirt carried the image of two bird wings crossing in an X formation. A pokétch was wrapped around his right wrist and a PokéNav sat in his pocket. A simple bag was lying by his feet, the material worn down with time.

The last year of his life had been a true adventure. Around June and July he had become a pokémon trainer, though not to the usual starter pokémon that were given out at the pokémon lab. No, instead he had found himself on top of a hillside the night before he was to become trainer, saving some strange purple bat creature from a swarm of at least six angry beedrill. That same purple bat creature was floating beside him at that very point.

His name was Ralph, and he was a crobat, a later discovered evolution of zubat. He and Joe had been close friends ever since their fateful meeting on Pallet's hillside. Since then they'd been practically inseparable, and the only people that had succeeded in splitting them up had used mass force to do so. The glue between them set quicker than hard concrete and was tougher then reinforced steel. They were a perfect duo. Joe was the strategy, and Ralph was the force, though both were perfectly able to do the other's job and neither of them were even terribly good at it to start with. Joe had a habit of losing concentration and Ralph got angry to easily.

But since their adventures that had changed, and they had become much stronger as a team. They had travelled all across both Kanto and Johto within the span of a year. They had defeated many tough opponents and even faced legendary pokémon. They had stopped Team Rocket… twice, and had vanquished a long forgotten monstrosity, with help of course. They couldn't forget about their friends. They had lost, they had suffered, yet they had always come out on top, stronger for their grieving. They had let no wall halt them, and now here they were, one of the strongest teams in both Kanto and Johto combined. They had defeated both the Kanto League and the Johto league. Most trainers couldn't admit to that feat. But Joe would never claim that it was purely him who had gotten them that far. He would have never even gotten close without their many other Pokemon and their human friends and family aiding them all the way.

"Well done, Terrence." Joe said as he too withdrew his Pokemon. He clipped the pokeball onto his own belt, where his own five other pokeballs waited patiently for their turn. One pokeball in particular was unique. A white coloured shell with a red ridge, unique to the usual half red half white shell and black ridge. On top of that, a small G signature was carved into the hinge on the back. This was Ralph's pokeball. He had been found with it, on the same day that Joe saved him from the beedrill. The story behind it was a long and tiring one. A sticker was plastered onto each pokeball. Ralph's pokeball had a poisonous skull with a bird wing plastered just beside it. The ball that belonged to Terrence had a clump of earth on it. The other four had a flame sticker, a water droplet sticker, a leaf sticker and a thunderbolt sticker. Each sticker embodied the type of the pokémon contained within. The poison skull and wing indicated that Ralph was a poison and flying type, the earth symbolized ground type, and so on for the rest. It helped Joe remember whose pokeball was whose.

Joe unclipped one off those pokeballs now, the one with the lightning bolt on it, and released it onto the grassy battlefield.

"Go, Pippy!" He called.

An upbeat and peppy Raichu appeared on his side of the field, its long tail whipping back and forth behind it. Sparks scattered from its red cheeks. He seemed eager to fight.

Walker smiled to himself. "Let's make this interesting, shall we." He said. He unclipped a new pokeball and threw it. "Go, Sonic!" He yelled.

From his pokeball burst a mighty pidgeot. It's red and yellow head plumage rustled in the wind. It held its proud, self-centred head high as it spotted its sparking opponent and clucked its beak.

Joe smiled. "Giving me the type advantage, uncle?" He asked. "What are you planning?"

"I just thought it'd give me a bit of a challenge." He said. "Otherwise I might get bored."

'It is on now!' Joe thought, with a wisecracking grin. He threw his arm forward. "Pippy, use thunderbolt."

Pippy the raichu fired a powerful bolt of electricity towards pidgeot.

"Dodge!" Walker called.

With a flap of its wings Sonic propelled itself upwards, avoiding the speeding bolt of electricity. Lightning was fast, but he was faster.

"Now, use quick attack!" Walker instructed.

Pippy wasn't fast enough to dodge Sonic's attack. He took the strike full force into the chest. Thankfully it was a weak attack, but it had sent him rolling back a few feet.

"Now wing attack it!" Walker instructed.

"Hold in there, Pippy!" Joe called. Pippy waited, crouched down into the grass like a flexing leopard waiting to pounce. Sonic flew in to attack. "Now, strike it with thunderbolt!" Joe called.

Pippy jumped up right in front of Sonic as it came in to attack, sparks resonating from his body. Sonic was moving too fast to steer out of the way. The attack blasted him in the face, sending powerful jolts of electricity through his body, clipping his wings. The bird collapsed to the ground, flinching.

"Come back, Sonic." Walker called. Sonic was withdrawn from the battle, its body still sparking with static. Pippy smiled to himself. That battle had gone quicker than it usually did. Since he'd evolved his lightning attacks had become a lot stronger.

"Honestly, what were you thinking there, uncle?" Joe asked with a smug grin. Walker smiled back with his own embarrassed grin.

"I was a bit too hopeful there." He admitted. "Still, I gave it a try. Sonic was able to get his hits in at least. It wasn't too bad."

Joe shook his head. "I thought you used to be a champion trainer?" He said.

Walker shook his head. "I was never the champion." He told him. "I was a very good pokémon trainer, but never the champion. I'm not that good."

Walker Glende had once been a trainer more than twenty years ago. He had lost his first pokémon in a sad accident, and as a result he had apparently gone off the rails a bit. Joe didn't know the full story, but he knew that at some point both his uncle and his father had been working for the famous Team Rocket, a band of criminals that stole pokémon from their trainers, abused those said pokémon and even went so far as to kill them if necessary, or sometimes by accident.

Joe remembered what happened to Sting, the first pokémon he'd ever caught, and the first one he'd ever lost. Sting was a beedrill that he had caught as a weedle in Viridian forest. He was killed after being shot during a fight with Team Rocket in Lavender Town. Subconsciously Joe rubbed his eye. He would never forget the pain he went through after his loss. He still wasn't truly over it, and he feared he never would be.

His uncle had once explained that he had been a part of Team Rocket for several years before finally leaving and starting up a team to defeat them. He had never told Joe who the other members were. Meanwhile his father, and mother, had both remained in team rocket until its original demies. At some point during their end he had been born. Only recently had he learned all this. Up until then he'd believed that his father was a policeman who was killed in a tragic accident. The truth sadly hurt more than the lies. But at least he'd eventually met his father, and he'd managed to redeem himself and tried to stop everything he'd help set in motion. Sadly that had led to him losing his own life. Joe couldn't help but feel partially guilty for that. He hadn't needed to die.

And then, from out of nowhere, a memory popped back up into his mind. It had jumped through the linked thoughts of his father and Team Rocket's last stand in Goldenrod City. Something his uncle had once told him about suddenly crept up into his conscious thought.

"Hey, Uncle Walker?" Joe said suddenly.

"Yeah?" His uncle said.

"You never told me the full story about how you got involved with Team Rocket." Joe said.

Walker Glende's happy expression seemed to drop. "Oh." He muttered. He scratched the back of his head and put a now fake smile on for his nephew. "I don't think you need to know that story." He told him.

Joe shook his head. "No, I'd like to know it." He argued simply.

Walker sighed. "I'd rather not talk about it, Joe." He said. "Let's get back to the battle, shall we?"

Joe shrugged. Pippy and Sonic had already been withdrawn from the battle, and all they needed to do now was send out another pokémon to replace them.

"Go, Pitt!" Joe called as he released his next pokémon. A large male venusaur appeared on the grass field. Pitt yawned loudly.

"Been a long time since I've seen him." Walker said with a small grin.

Joe had plenty of pokémon by this point. Since he'd been traveling in both Kanto and Johto he had been able to raise two very different teams, each with their own unique strength and weaknesses. At this point in time he had owned sixteen different Pokemon, although after certain events on their journey he now owned only ten of them. The others had been lost through trade, released either because they wanted to be let go or because they were too violent to keep, and in one case even killed. One of the pokémon he still owned wasn't even a team member. That pokémon was his personal pet. Blitz the Growlithe had been given to Joe as a birthday present on his thirteenth birthday, and while he was energetic and eager, he was too young to take on any of his adventures. As a result he had been kept at his uncle's farm during the past year of traveling. He hadn't been happy about it, but he had at least been safe. Before this battle six of those pokémon had been picked out to take part. So far Joe had only sent out two of them. Now it was time for a third one to appear.

Walker released his next pokémon. "Go, Cannon!" He called.

A heavy shelled Blastoise landed on the field. Another battle where Joe had the type advantage, yet knowing his uncle he probably had something planned.

"Solar Beam!" Joe called.

"Rapid Spin!" Walker called.

Pitt began gathering light. Cannon shrunk into its shell and began spinning rapidly on the spot. When the beam of green energy collided with the approaching spinning shell there was an explosion. Colour irradiated the field, with bright luminous greens and frantic shattering whites. Cannon still came rotating forwards, undeterred by the powerful attacked. Pitt's proud expression dropped to a worried stare.

"You can still stop it!" Joe called encouragingly. He had a secret ace up his sleeve. Since he'd gotten Pitt back from his father he'd taught him a new move, having had plenty of time since defeating the Johto League. This was one move that only a venusaur could learn. It was time he put this move into action. "Use Frenzy Plant!" Joe commanded.

Pitt grinned. This would stop the oncoming tank of a turtle. Pitt raised his single leg up, then stomped down hard. A footprint was left deep in the earth. A second later the ground ahead of him shook, and from it six massive barbed roots erupted out from the ground. They lashed up towards the sky like tentacles of vegetable matter. Then they fell down, plummeting like hacked down trees in a six pointed X towards the opponent Blastoise. Unable to halt, Cannon was forced to endure the attack head on. He was crushed under the weight of the roots. Joe pumped his fist.

"Perfect!" He yelled. Pitt smiled proudly once more, his legs drooping tiredly. A move like that expended a lot of energy, and Pitt had used so much already. He would need a small rest before being ready to pull off another attack.

"I must say, I didn't know he could do that." Walker muttered, impressed by his opponent.

Joe, Ralph and Pitt all seemed to be smugly grinning. Their grins faded quickly however, as suddenly the massive roots trapping Cannon in a pile began to shake. They looked in horror as one by one the roots split in half and evaporated into compost. A spinning shell sat in the middle of the roots, refusing to give up no matter what powerful grass moves were thrown down on it. The remnants of an energy shield faded away around the blue turtle. Joe, and Pitt, subconsciously gulped in internal fear.

Walker couldn't help but grin himself. "Though you forgot how Cannon likes to use protect." He said. "And now you're left open." He pointed a hand out.

"Skull Back!" He called.

Pitt was forced to watch his opponent run towards him, its round head shrinking into its shell and switching to charging on all fours. When he was barely inches away, Cannon pushed his head back up with the force of a double barrel shotgun. Its strong cranium smashed Pitt in the face. That was sadly all it needed in order to take him out. Pitt collapsed. The combination of the Frenzy Plant and the strike to the face had left him with no energy. He succumbed to his own weight, his legs sprawled out and his head in the mud. Cannon celebrated by firing a few hydro pumps into the air. The water came back down as rain droplets, falling upon the on looking trainers and the remaining pokémon.

"That's one for me." Walker counted, smiling. "I'm slowly catching up. Another three to go." Joe smirked arrogantly. He shook his head in muttered 'ha-ha' in an almost mocking way.

Pitt and Cannon were withdrawn from the battlefield. Joe was not disappointed in his pokémon. This was the first battle he had taken part in and where Pitt knew Frenzy Plant. It was only expected of him to not know how to use it properly. But he'd have time to practice and time to learn. Joe clipped Pitt's pokeball - which wore a leaf sticker on its shell - back to his belt. Walker also withdrew his pokémon. Three left on each side.

"Out of curiosity…" Joe said suddenly, testing the waters. "Why don't you want to talk more about your past?"

Walker Glende lowered his head a little, sighing with irritation.

"I just don't." He said quietly. "Can we not leave it that?

"I'm just wondering why. You told me about my father and mother, and about Team Rocket, but you never told me the full story… about what happened to you." Joe shrugged. "It's just on my mind. I was a little curious to know…"

"I'd rather not bring up my past." Walker interrupted him. "There's nothing to learn from it."

"Nothing at all?" Joe asked.

"Nothing." Walker said firmly.

A pokeball was thrown and a hitmonlee appeared on the field, performing a judo flip kick the second it was released.

"Now, let's get back to our battle, shall we."

Joe shrugged, deciding it was probably best to just let it go for now. But it still hung around at the back of his head. He couldn't shake the question, no matter how hard he tried. Not even the presence of one of his old Pokemon could shake it.

The hitmonlee fighting now on Walker's side was called Carter. He had once been on Joe's team during his recent travels, in fact he had help Joe defeat the Kanto league champion, who turned out to be one of Joe's childhood friends. He had done an amazing job at defeating a rather troublesome snorlax. But when Joe had left for Johto he'd left most of his Kato team behind. Carted had been one of them. He'd been kept at the farm, and he'd helped Joe's uncle out with farm work and house work. It seemed that now they worked together in pokémon battles as well. Joe was not upset by this. As much as he loved working with Carter, it was his choice to join Walker's team. He seemed to get more activity being with him, even if it was just farm work. Every now and then he'd return to battle alongside Joe, if ever he felt like it. But now he pretty much belonged to Walker.

Joe smiled a little to himself. "You traitor." He joked.

Carter blinked, and then gave him a cheeky stare, flicking his eyebrow up twice.

Joe unclipped his next pokeball. This one had the water droplet sticker on it, with a small wing sticker beside it. He flicked it up into the air and caught it on its way down. He then threw the ball onto the grass ahead.

A monstrous red gyarados appeared on the grass, its long, scaly body wriggling about just above the floor. It hissed, its fang bared at its opponent. Carter seemed unthreatened by it, but Walker was a little worried.

"Is she safe to let out here?" he asked, staring at the titanic sea serpent levitating above the ground. Joe smiled at him.

"Don't worry. Cyclone will behave herself this time." He said. "Won't you, Cyclone?"

The red gyarados made a gurgling roar.

"I think that's a yes." Joe said, a little unsure of himself. Walker narrowed his eyes.

"You know what happened last time you let her out." He said seriously. "It took me several days to fix the living room. The wall is still dented. I had to pay five builders to fix the chimney."

"That's why we aren't fighting near the house." Joe told him. He clapped his hands together. "Shall we get back to it?" He asked. Walker smiled. "Okay then." Joe pointed a finger ahead of him. "Cyclone, use Ice Fang!" Joe called.

Cyclone lunged forwards, sharp fangs glistening with frost and jaws wide open to bite down.

"Blaze Kick!" Walker called.

Carter rushed in to meet the oncoming water dragon. As the two got closer, he crouched and jump up high, sailing almost over the head of the beast. Cyclone reared up in an attempt to grab him in mid-flight, but what she didn't see coming was the flaming heel swinging behind the fighting pokémons. The attack struck her between the eyes. Cyclone screeched and fell backwards, landing on her sailed spine. Carter landed a few feet before her, his foot extinguishing, folding his arms in front of himself. Cyclone groaned.

"Come on, Cyclone. Get him back!" Joe encouraged.

Cyclone began to rear up again. Carter was already preparing another attack, this time planning to use a high jump kick. He took a few seconds to prepare himself, before pushing of the ground and pulling one powerful leg back. However Cyclone had been expecting this, in fact she'd been waiting for it. As Carter was halfway through his jump, she turned her head towards him. A pillar of purple dragon flame blasted from her gaping mouth. The flames hit Carter in his open chest and knocked him back. Carter landed on his back, writhing and swatting the burning air surrounding it. After a few second he flipped up onto his feet, wiping the purple flames of his skin. Cyclone's attack had clearly done quite a bit of damaged, and it had certainly knocked off his concentration. The two pokémons glared at each other hatefully.

"Mega Kick!" Walker called.

"Waterfall!" Joe called.

The two pokémons charged at each other. Cyclone spiralled upwards in a torrent of water. Carter jump, landed on Cyclone's chest, grabbed her skin and began running vertically up her body towards her head. The two of them met at the tip of the attack, and struck one another in an explosion of water and bright white energy. After the implosion they both landed, both unconscious.

"Well, that was an anti-climax." Walker muttered, seeing his defeated pokémon.

"No kidding." Joe agreed, scratching his head, wondering what exactly had happened?

They both quickly withdrew their pokémon from the field.

"I must say, this is a fun battle." Walker said smiling. "I haven't been this excited since I became trainer." He stopped. Joe was looking at him, eagerly interested. Walker coughed and calmed down. "But that's not saying much." He added. "I never had the kind of adventure you did, I mean."

Joe raised an eyebrow. He wasn't falling so easily for his uncle's humility.

"That's not how it sounds to me." Joe told him. "I thought you helped defeat Team Rocket the first time around."

Walker pretended that he hadn't heard him.

"Yeah, I never had many adventures. Not really. Nothing too exciting." He patted his pockets. "I only have two pokémon left now." He said, changing the subject. "Looks like we'll have to wrap this up soon."

Joe was starting to get a little annoyed with him. "Why are you being so defensive?" He asked.

"Sorry?" Walker said, acting like he didn't know what Joe was talking about. Joe didn't fall for his innocence.

"Why do you keep refusing to answer my question?" He asked. Walker sighed with irritation.

"Look, Joe, it's a painful memory for me, okay. I don't want to bring it back up. I already told you the basic outline of what happened. Is that not enough?"

"You didn't tell me everything." Joe told him. "Like how you managed to leave Team Rocket, how you defeated them, how you and my father even got involved with that awful group. You never told me that."

"Can it not wait till another day?" Walker asked.

"No." Joe told him. "Because another day becomes another week, then another month, then another year, and then it never happens." He stated.

"Joseph, I'd rather not do this today." Walker stated. "Now let's get back to our battle please." He insisted.

Joe sighed. He did not answer his uncle, but unclipped his next pokeball. His uncle did the same. They both readied their pokeballs.

"Go, Cinders!" Joe called.

"Go, Fry!" Walker called.

Both pokeballs landed, and two pokémon appeared. It was like looking into a mirror. Two Charizards stared at each other, standing perfectly opposite to one another, flame bellowing from their jaws and claws sharp and raking the air. Both were almost identically, with a few exceptions. Walker's charizard was evidently smaller and younger looking then Joe's. He also had fewer battle wounds.

"Alright, Cinders." Joe said aloud. "You're gonna need to focus your attacks if you want this to be over quickly."

Cinders the charizard roared in agreement. Cinders, like Pitt, had been with Joe since the beginning of his adventures. He had been rescued from a small day-care outside of Cerulean city after it was harassed and eventually attacked by Team Rocket. Pitt had been given to Joe as a present from his uncle for beating his first gym leader. The two of them had both proven to be valuable and extremely powerful team members, as well as close friends surprisingly enough. The two of them seemed to dislike leaving each other's side. In fact Pitt was only taking part in this fight because Cinder's had put up a fuss. Joe had to respect them for that. They'd even decided unanimously to both leave Joe's team when he left for Johto, so that they could stick together. Joe's father had taken them in after that, until the final fight, when everything had come to its end. Now they were both back with him, and closer than they ever had been it seemed. They'd both learned new, powerful moves during that time. Pitt had already displayed his. Joe could only assume that Cinders would get the same chance to do so.

"Dragon Claw!" Joe called.

Cinders flapped his large wings and began rushing across the grass, a sharp claw glowing with dragon flame and prepared to lash out.

"Smokescreen!" Walker called.

Walker's charizard, Fry, exhaled a plume of black smoke. As Cinder's approached he passed through the obscure black cloud. His eyes stung as the smoke touched them, and he found himself lashing around in the darkness. Out of panic he spat a flamethrower from his maw, burning up the air in a blazing arc around him.

"Focus Punch!" Walker yelled.

Cinder's finally found his way out of the black cloud, only to see the opponent charizard powering up an attack.

"Quickly, stop it!" Joe yelled.

Cinder's reacted fast. He jumped at the opponent, his large skin wings letting him glide just above the ground, and lashed out with a glowing silver claw. The attack struck, but not quick enough. Fry had already powered its attack up. A powerful glowing claw struck Cinder's in the gut as his own attack struck. The force was so powerful that it send him flying backwards, where he eventually landed heavily into the earth. Fry meanwhile had a clean slash down his chest that glower with the residue of steel energy.

"Fire Spin!" Walker commanded.

Fry spat a collection of small embers from his maw. The flames collected in a small tornado and rotated rapidly on the spot, before being brushed away by a gust of wind towards the opponent dragon. Cinders had barely gotten back to his feet before he noticed the flame tornado floating towards him, leaving a small burning wake behind it.

"Blow it back!" Joe called.

Cinder's flapped his powerful wings. The gusts he created were strong enough to change the course of the attack. The blazing tornado turned around and rotated back towards its creator. Fry sadly didn't notice this. The tornado hit him, and did minimal damage. However, it did not disappear instantly, as Joe had expected it to. It continued to spin around the red winged lizard, refusing to extinguish no matter how hard Fry tied to put it out. Every now and then the flames would graze his scaly skin.

"Now's your chance!" Joe called, realising he had an open shot. "Use Blast Burn!"

Blast burn was the newest move Cinders had learned. It was a move only Charizards could learn, and it was not only highly potent but also highly explosive. Cinders erupted into fire. He raised back a fist and prepared to slam it into the dry earth.

"Fire Blast and Focus Punch!" Walker yelled.

Fry refocused on the battle. He exhaled a blazing star that glowed almost as bright as the sun. It sat in front of him for several seconds, before Fry struck it with a powerful fist. The flaming star went sailing across the battlefield, right as Cinders made his attack. His claw smashed the ground, and the fire around him sunk into the earth. Seconds later it reappeared in a blazing eruption directly underneath where Fry was standing. Fry was lifted upwards, his whole body singing and burning up. Unprotected, the flaming star hit Cinders directly in the chest. Both dragons took their attacks head on, and both suffered greatly.

Cinders blinked, his breathing heavy. He had exhausted all his energy on the one attack, and was now trying to recover from a direct hit. He winced further. And then he collapsed face first into the grass. Fry landed back on the ground with a heavy thud. For a while he didn't move. And then, by some miracle, he stood up once more. He was only strong enough to kneel by this point, but he was still up, and evidently still eager to fight.

"Another two to me." Walker said, clapping proudly. "Only one pokémon left each."

Joe looked up from his defeated pokémon. He seemed more determined than before, but possibly not for the same reasons.

"Do you still stick by not telling me anything?" He asked.

"Yes." Walker said, suddenly turning much stricter.

"And have you ever planned on telling me anything?" Joe demanded. "You didn't tell me the truth about my parents. You didn't tell me the truth about Team Rocket. Dou you just like leaving me in the dark."

"Joseph!" Walker snapped. "It's not that simple."

"It is!" Joe snapped back. "It really is! It can't be that tough to say one sentence or two."

"Life's not one sentence long!" Walker argued.

"Why are you so defensive?"

"Why do you think?!"

They glared at one another.

"If I win this battle will you tell me?" Joe asked. Walker was quiet. "Promise me that you will tell me about your past if I beat you in this pokémon battle!" He demanded.

"Joe, you're really beginning to annoy me now!" Walker told him.

"Promise!" Joe shouted.

"Okay!" Walker shouted back.

And at that point a simple practice match became a sudden championship clash.

"Ralph, win this for me!" Joe said, his teeth gritted.

"Arco, it's time to lecture my nephew once more!" Walker barked.

Ralph looked incredibly reluctant to get involved in this fight. He enjoyed a good battle, but Joe was unnecessarily angry. He didn't want to fuel that anger by getting into a physical fight with his uncle's pet. But Joe was demanding that he fight, and he had no other pokémon to turn to. At least if he won Joe would get what he wanted. He could at least do that.

Arco the Arcanine, Walker's oldest and closest pokémon companion, had been resting a couple of feet behind Walker's position, basking in the early summer sun. He had been rather ignorant of the ongoing match behind him, but at the call of his name he'd looked up. The great noble fire dog approached his trainer, brushing past his leg and letting his hand fall onto his furry back.

The two trainers continued to glare at each other as their pokémon approached the battlefield. Neither of them would relent from this. If they did, they gave up part of themselves. They would stand by their beliefs. There was an unspoken silence across the field. Even the wind made no noise. Then battle continued.

"Steel Wing!" Joe yelled.

"Extremespeed!" Walker shouted.

Ralph sped forwards in a burst of air, his four wings pushing him forwards. Arco sprinted at his opponent, a blur of white and red, his four legs scrapping up the ground behind him. The two collided into each other. Ralph landed heavily on his wing several feet back. Arco recoiled, the crobat's wing having hit him between the eyes. A silver line bruised his face. Bother pokémon recovered quickly and prepared to attack again, circling one another threateningly.

"Iron Tail!" Walker called.

Arco spun around and whipped his white tail – now glowing silver – at Ralph's face. Ralph was quick enough to dodge the attack, and now Arco was left open.

"Cross Poison!" Joe yelled.

Ralph pulled his large wings back and slashed them down in a glowing purple X across Arco's side. The flame wold yelped and jumped back. The glowing X scarred his red and black fur. Arco looked at his marked skin, then back at Ralph. His fuzzy eyebrows grew stern and angry.

"Return!" Walker yelled.

Arco took a step back, indicating a retreat. And then he lunged without warning. He struck Ralph in the chest with the top of his head. Ralph recoiled back.

"Get him, Ralph!" Joe yelled furiously. He was not eager to lose today.

Ralph rolled his eyes and sighed sadly. This was turning out to be a pretty awful day. Without another thought he took off into the air. Arco watched as he rose up in an arrow of air. Ralph turned in mid-flight and dived down again, aimed towards his opponent.

"Flare Blitz!" Walker yelled.

Arco blasted a burning star at Ralph. The crobat had no time to evade it. He was moving too fast and the blazing star was too wide. He passed straight through it. The flames singes his skin, and embers enshrouded his body, but still he kept flying, diving fasted down more like a comet then an arrow now. He impacted into Arco, and the two pokémon crashed into the ground. There was a heavy grown from the both of them.

"Get up!" Walker yelled.

"Come on, Ralph!" Joe screamed. "Strike it while you can!"

Ralph looked back at his trainer. Joe was fuming. His hear was practically on fire. This wasn't healthy. He was so angry over one thing. He hadn't been angry when this fight started. He didn't need to be like this. This had to stop.

He looked down at Arco. The fire dog was slowly getting his strength back. His eyes were closed but flickering slightly. He was trying to get back up.

Ralph raised a wing to attack. And Arco retaliated. He lashed out suddenly, smacking Ralph in the face with his forehead. The crobat collapsed onto the ground behind him. Arco immediately pounced on him, pressing his heavy paws into his wings and pinning him where he lay.

"Yes!" Walker roared. "Finish this fight."

Arco was just as unrelenting as Ralph was. He took an intake of breath, the back of his jaws glowing bright red with flame. Ralph had no choice but to fight back.

He screeched directly into Arco's ear. The fire dog yelped and recoiled, his ears ringing. His paws weakened and Ralph quickly freed himself, pushing himself back into the air and blasting backwards with a flap of his wings. Arco glared at him. Ralph glared back.

"End this!" Joe yelled. Ralph glanced back at his trainer. Joe was pumping his fist in the air. His face was evil and grinning. He seemed to be almost on the verge of sanity. "Take it down!" Ralph looked back at Arco. Walker was shouting similar things at him, and he looked just as worried about it. Ralph had no idea why this was continuing on anymore. This fight needed to end, yet neither he nor Arco would surrender so quickly, and neither Joe nor Walker would let them. There would be no winner here, and the loser would only suffer greatly. So someone needed to stop this.

"Fly!" Joe yelled.

"Return!" Walker yelled.

Ralph flapped his wings quicker. This fight was about to end, and he would make sure of it. He sped forwards, the air bending around him like thin liquid. Arco began sprinting across the grass, head lowered. The two approached faster and faster, the distance between them getting quickly smaller and smaller. Ralph spread his wings like blades. Arco lowered his head like a battering ram. They were meters way from each other.

And then they stopped. Ralph threw his wings out flat, and stopped in mid-flight. Arco pressed his feet into the earth and came to a jarring halt. The two of them stood and hovered barely feet away from each other, both with the same stern expression. And then, slowly, they turned around to face their trainer and sat down defiantly.

Joe and Walker both gasped.

"What are you doing, Ralph?" Joe yelled. "He's right there!"

"Arco, I didn't tell you to sit!" Walker barked. "Finish him!"

Both pokémon continued their defiance. They sat and glared at their trainers, refusing to move. Simultaneously they shook their heads, both with disobedience and with disappointment.

"Cro!" Ralph shouted, his high pitch screech tone echoing across the field.

"Woof!" Arco barked, his deep wolf voice boomingly loud.

"Is that it then?" Joe said, sounding very angry about what his pokémon was doing. "You're just giving up?! You won't even finish the job?"

"After all we've been through, you're just letting him win?" Walker asked, sounding exasperated. "You know what we've been through, everything we've seen, everything we've done. You won't defend me when I refuse to look back at then?"

Arco held his head a little, but quickly he gained confidence. This was for the best. Like an honest man defying the sinners around him he sat his ground.

Both trainers exhaled.

Joe took a few steps forwards.

"What are we doing?" He asked. Walker looked at his nephew suddenly. "We're arguing for no reason. We let this get out of hand, and we didn't even see it."

Walker found himself unable to respond. His nephew was right. They'd bother let this dispute ruin their practice. It had taken their closest companions to remind them of the fools they were. The thirty year old man felt ashamed of himself.

"Joe…" He muttered quietly. "I'm sorry. I…" He stopped. There was no excuse for his behaviour.

"Don't apologise." Joe told him. "I was just as bad as you were, if not worse."

Ralph returned to his friend's side. He was tired out from having to fight so demandingly. He had hoped for a nice warm up. But, of course, life had a habit of changing plans. Joe patted his crobat companion on the back, proud that he had stood up against him. He was grateful that Ralph knew when to say no, because clearly he didn't. Arco strolled up slowly beside Walker, and his trainer petted him kindly. Arco smiled a little, his aged expression grateful that the fight had finally ended.

"You wanted to know about my past?" Walker said, clearly feeling guilty.

"It's not important." Joe told him quickly. "You don't need to tell me if you don't want to. If it hurts that much then I can wait."

Walker shook his head. "No." He said, swallowing down his nerves. "No. It's time I got this off my chest."

Joe looked at his uncle. He seemed very nervous to speak up. There was the hint of distress in his face. Yet he was letting himself be honest. Joe could only imagine how tough this was for him.

"But not here." Walker continued, speaking a little more confidently. "I'll tell you about it tonight. First we'll have dinner, something to drink… and then I'll tell you exactly what happened."

* * *

 **Would just like to quickly say that this story won't be as long as the previous books, only about 7 or 8 chapters long. There may be some long pauses between chapters, but I will do the best to get them up as soon as I can. Thank you for reading this far, and hope you're looking forward to the next chapter.**


	2. Chapter 2: Walker's Story

The day soon passed, and before long dusk had set, turning the sky a light orange and purple. The wind had picked up. The trees rustled outside the farm house, the fields of wheat and barley rippling with each gust. Inside the farm house was warm and cosy. The fireplace had been filled with dry wooden planks that now burned nicely underneath the chimney. The lights were off, allowing the light of the fire to illuminate the living room with its orange glow.

Walker Glende sat in a soft arm chair, a small end table beside him with a warm mug of tea stationed on a drink mat on top of it. His nephew sat opposite him on a slightly worn sofa, Ralph lying beside him with his wings around his body and his head propped against a cushion. He seemed very satisfied with the position he was in, and very comfortable. His eyes were starting to grow heavy. Arco was curled up beside Walker's chair, his fluffy tail waggling every now and then as he slept in the light of the fire. A smaller, fluffier Growlithe lay beside him, Joe's pet, Blitz.

"I suppose now you want to hear what I have to tell you." Walker said, looking up from his lap. Joe turned his attention back to his uncle.

"If that's no trouble." He said. "I know it's something you're uncomfortable with talking about."

Walker Glende nodded slowly.

"Yes." He said. He was silent. "It happened a long time ago." He continued. "Please remember that I was still very young. I changed a lot since then. I tried to be a better person."

"I won't judge you for your past, Uncle." Joe told him. "You raised me after all and I turned out okay."

"Very true." Walker said.

He looked into the fire. The scarlet flames lapped at the wood, burning the bark into a thick coat of black ash. The smell of scented wood was relaxing to the soul. The atmosphere of the fire helped to calm the two men as they sat and talked. Walker sat back in his chair and sighed deeply.

"This all started back about twenty years ago. I was eleven at the time, and my brother, your father, he was about thirteen, maybe a few months older. You'd know him better as Enlai Cheng, the Rocket Commander who pestered you when you first started fighting back against them."

Joe nodded. He remembered Cheng very well.

"I can't remember too well." Walker continued. "It feels like forever ago. But I was around that old, and at that specific point in time I got my first pokémon. You know how the system works; a trainer is given the option of picking one of three starter pokémon specific to each region. It was the same structure back then as it is today. But my parents, your grandparent, had a different approach to the idea. My brother and I were growing up on this exact farm at that time. We'd been here all our lives. My father was a veteran trainer. He was in his forties by this point in time. He believed that, in order to become a strong and respectable trainer you needed to catch your first pokémon yourself. So that's what he had us do. My brother Fraser and I were taken to the woods just east of here and told not to come back until we'd caught a pokémon for ourselves. I was very nervous at the time, I was not as confident as my father and brother were. Fraser, he was keen to rush in by himself. I guess in some respect you got that from him.

My father gave us both five pokeballs. That was it, just five simple red pokeballs. Nothing else. Not even anything to protect ourselves. The woods weren't brimming with dangerous pokémon, but a few did live in there. You should know all about the beedrill hives that infest that place, considering that's what lead you and Ralph to meeting."

Joe glanced at his companion. Ralph had fallen completely asleep now, his snores loudly butting into the conversation. Joe placed a small cushion on top of his head to cover out the sound. It only slightly worked. His uncle continued with his story.

"So we went in. I remember being very scared. Walking into a wild area of land with nothing to defend yourself makes you feel very open and defenceless. I had no success in catching pokémon. I tried multiple times, on weedle, on beedrill, on pikachu, on nidoran males and females, on ekans, on pidgey, on spearow, on caterpie, on butterfree, on Oddish, and even on a venomoth that I happened to spot. All to no avail. They all either dodged or escaped from the ball that I threw, and with no pokémon to fight them I couldn't weaken them. I must have walked around for half a day before finally getting successful. It was getting late. The sun had almost gone completely from the sky when finally I got lucky. A meowth crept out of the shadows and tried to steal something from my rucksack. I noticed it however, and it panicked, attacking me. I had only one pokeball left at the time. The others had been either lost or broken open. I had no choice but to use it. The meowth didn't even struggle. The ball just clicked shut instantly. And that was it. I had my first pokémon. Not exactly a pokémon I expected to catch, but by that point I was glad to have caught anything. I decided to name her on the spot. I called her Malin. I know it's not a real name, or even a real word, but it was the only thing I could think of calling her. Kitty seemed rather insulting too me, and whiskers was just too simple. So Malin it was.

I returned out of the forest to find that my brother had already made it back, and not just with one pokémon. He had five with him. He'd apparently been much quicker than I had, taking only a few hours to catch his first pokémon, and then another few to catch the other four. The first one he'd caught, his starter pokémon, was a Growlithe. He'd named it Arco. Such an unconventional name. Much sillier then Malin."

Arco sat up and looked at his master with despising eyes.

"I was joking." Walker said with a small smile, patting the fire hound on the back of the head.

Arco continued to look at him this way. He then lay down once more and went back to sleep. Walker coughed, continuing his story.

"But, then again, we were a very unconventional family. That was thanks to my father. He wanted us both to be just like him: tough, strong, stern pokémon trainers who would go on to rival the region champion himself." He took a sip of his drink and continued on.

"My brother and I set off the next morning on our journey. We would do the same thing every other trainer in the region did. We would go from city to city and defeat the gym leaders one by one. There were different gym leaders at this point in time. Pewter's gym was run by a man called Kent. He was an okay guy. He used bug types if I remember correctly. Viridian forest was full of them, so it wasn't tough for him to grow a team. My brother and I both beat him pretty easily, even with just the one pokémon. After that there was Cerulean city and Vermillion City. They were much tougher. Cerulean was still a water gym back then, but it had a different leader. I forget her name now. I remember Vermillion being a real nightmare. Lieutenant Surge wasn't in charge back then. Instead it was a guy called Edric. He used fighting types. I must have battled him five times before Malin could defeat his machoke. She had already evolved by that point.

I was not very successful at catching pokémon. I could never get it right. I'd either throw the ball too late when the pokémon had been defeated or had run, or to early and the pokémon had escaped with ease. But it didn't bother me too much. I had Malin. She wasn't a perfect companion, but she tried her best and that was enough for me. She didn't seem to mind not having any other pokémon friends. I think she liked the attention I gave her."

Walker's smile faded slowly. He sighed as the emotions came back to him.

"But then _it_ happened." He said.

"The rock slide?" Joe said.

Walker nodded. "Yes." He said quietly. "I had a dream that night. I dreamt of a rock fall, and the screams of my pokémon Malin. I took it as nothing more than a bad dream. If only I'd known. We weren't very far into Rock Tunnel when it happened. I don't remember too well what caused it. Maybe a couple of angry zubats were set off, and their screeches loosened the rocks in the roof. That place has always been rather hazardous. But I was unlucky to be right in the centre of it. Malin was only out of her pokeball because she wanted a walk. I should have withdrawn her." He wiped a tear from his eye. "I ran as fast as I could to get out of there. I was only just fast enough. But Malin…" He stopped, choking on his words. A small tear fell from his eye as the memories came flooding back. He sighed heavily. "She was trapped under the rocks." He said. "We searched for days. We never found the body."

"Maybe she got out?" Joe suggested. "Maybe she was okay?"

Walker shook his head. "No." He said simply. "Rocks don't bleed."

Joe gulped. "I'm sorry."

Walker nodded, unable to say any thanks back.

"I cried for days." He said. "I prayed to whatever god there was watching us that he bring her back, that he take me in her place, that he cure me of my pain… but he never did." Walker shook his head. "No. Instead he sent a demon to steal away my soul."

He took a large gulp of his drink. "A week had passed before he showed up. I was crying at Malin's grave in the pokémon tower in Lavender Town, when he approached me." He sighed. "Giovanni" He took a sip of his drink. "He told me about himself, that he was the gym leader in Viridian City, that he was forming a small group of skilled and talented trainers to be his seconds, that he wanted to help me grow as a trainer so that something like this wouldn't happen to me twice. Keep in mind that Team Rocket had never been heard of by this point. They were a new faction. No one knew about what they were really up to. I certainly didn't know. I made a stupid choice. I said yes to him." Walker finished his drink and sat back in his chair, looking glum.

"You can't blame yourself for not knowing." Joe said.

"No." Walker agreed. "But I can blame myself for not doing anything about it. I never had to do the things I did. I honestly thought I was becoming a better trainer. I was just a criminal."

"You were tricked." Joe tried to argue.

"That's not an excuse for the things I did." Walker said self-loathingly. "He also convinced my brother, Fraser, to join his little 'gang' as he put it. I can't remember if my brother was really hesitant or really excited, but he decided to join too. Giovanni was really nice to me. He led us both back to his gym in Viridian City and at first he had us take the part of gym trainers. He gave me new pokémon to train and care for, but it never felt the same. None of them were like Malin. They always seemed very afraid of me, too nervous to fight half the time. He even gave me a new meowth, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't her. I could never form the same bond with them. I was too distraught still.

After about half a year as gym trainers Giovanni took us aside and told us that we'd been 'promoted'. We'd done well enough to become proper members of his little 'gang'. He even gave us uniforms. They were the same black suits with red R's back then as they are now. Clearly their design style didn't change over time. But back then it was simply petty things. Giovanni convinced us to go out and capture wild pokémon. It sounded simple enough. I thought it'd teach me a bit more about how to catch pokémon for myself, which as I said was something I struggled with. But I soon realised the darker side to the job. He had us catching wild pokémon in nets. We would run into the tall grass, send the wild pokémon nesting inside into an alert state, and then catch them with the nets as they would try to escape. It was awful. They would always panic and struggle so desperately. I felt sick at what I was doing. That first night my brother and I came back with nothing, while the other members of the gang would have cages full of pidgey, rattata and other smaller wild pokémon. Some would even have rarer pokémon caught in their nets. Giovanni was furious at us. He went so far as to make one of the more beloved members of the group beat us till we collapsed. He made the promise to do the same again if we came back empty handed twice. It was at that point I realised why the pokémon in my care were so afraid of me. They were wild pokémon, stolen from their habitats so cruelly. They had never been befriended or battled and caught in a pokeball like most usually were. They were kidnapped and taken away against their will, to be put to use as workers or fighters under Giovanni's whim. Some pokémon rights activists claim that capturing pokémon in pokeballs is inhumane as it unwillingly takes them away from their environments, but at least a pokeball isn't a net. In a pokeball a pokémon is protected, comfortable, relaxed and safe. It's able to grow attached to its capturer through the affinity the ball supplies it. In a net it's scared, vulnerable and alone. That same attachment can't be made. It's cruel beyond understanding.

My brother quickly learned how to do his job. He'd always come back with a pokémon or two. He got used to the inhumane things he did. It took me much longer to accept it. For a while I refused to even go out and hunt pokémon. Giovanni would always punish me for it. But the sad fact is eventually I gave in. I couldn't take the beatings anymore. Sadly I gave up on my morals, and became just like them. I will always regret not being stronger then I should have been."

Walker rubbed his eyes.

"But it gets worse." He continued. "I'd been with Giovanni for about a year, before he had us promoted once more. This time we were doing much more demanding work. We were told to go out into routes, town and cities and…" He paused. "Kidnap owned pokémon." He looked ashamed of himself. "And we did it. We attacked pokémon centres, trainer schools, even homes. We stole hundreds of pokémon. Most of the time the trainers would fight back, but most of the time we'd simply defeat them and take their pokémon. A few times one would get lucky and defeat one of us before fleeing, but most weren't strong enough to defeat us after our training with Giovanni. The worst thing was seeing the faces of the trainers as we netted and caged their pokémon. I won't ever forget their pleading cries. A lot of them were younger then I was. Some weren't even ten years old, and we were stealing their Clefairy and Jigglypuff away without a second thought. It wasn't right." Walker held his head.

"Uncle, I'm sorry." Joe said quietly. His uncle looked at him through his fingers. Tears were in his aged eyes. Joe couldn't imagine the painful thoughts going through his mind. "You don't have to keep going." Joe tried to tell him.

His uncle shook his head. "I need to." He said, tears racking his voice. "I need to get this out. The truth must be told."

He sighed, wiped the tears away, and continued on.

"This process continued on for another year or so, and during that time I became more and more hopeless for our cause and for myself. I had seen many awful things because of the actions we took. I had seen pokémon killed simply because we couldn't take them. I had seen people hurt because they wouldn't get out of our way. I hated myself and I hoped that every breath I took would be my last. I felt I deserved it for doing nothing to stop what we did. But the final straw was made when I found out what Giovanni was doing behind everyone's backs. One day, after coming back from a very unsuccessful mission, I noticed one member of our gang doing something very suspicious in one of the spare rooms. I followed him in secrecy. He opened up a secret room bellow the base. A laboratory. And in that laboratory were the most hapless and ragged pokémon I had ever seen. Experiments. They had been experimenting on the pokémon we had brought back. We weren't just trying to steal strong pokémon. We were trying to make them unnaturally stronger. I consulted Giovanni immediately on this. He was surprised I'd even found out about it. He acted as if what he was doing was for some greater good. I told him he was insane. He didn't trust me from that point on. No one did. Even my own brother thought badly off me. He didn't speak to me for weeks. But I could not forgive them for what they were doing. I decide then and there that it had to stop.

I prepared for a whole month. I could have just left, but I would not only be abandoning my morals further but also the pokémon that were already imprisoned there. I had to find a way to free them. And I did. A month had passed, and I made my escape. I set fire to the base."

Joe gasped. "You set fire to their base?" He said.

Walker nodded. "The blaze engulfed the entire gym. The whole building went up." He said. "It was night time, so very few other people were in the gym, and no one innocent at least. I took my chance in the panic and broke into the laboratory. I freed as many pokémon as I could and led them out to safety. I couldn't save them all. Some of them were beyond saving, others got caught in the fire. I destroyed the lab, and a large amount of the base, but I managed to save a few other things. One of them was a small ring that my mother had left me. The other was a collection of data from the lab's PC. I ran out of the building with the pokémon I had managed to rescue as it went up in smoke. And that was the last I saw of Team Rocket for a while. I ran far away, but I didn't go home. I knew that Giovanni would expect me to head there. He knew where I lived. He knew where everyone lived. So I ran into the woods, and there I hid. I let all of the pokémon I'd saved go, even the ones I'd been training for those years. Pokemon have amazingly good homing instincts. They would find their way back to their homes or their trainers. But one wouldn't leave me. You're fathers Growlithe, Arco."

Walker patted the snoozing arcanine by his feet.

"No matter what I tried to do he wouldn't leave. He had been caged up all those years, watching the other pokémon suffer, seeing the things his trainer had done. But he knew that I had put a stop to it. I guess he felt safer with me, or maybe he felt he could help make a change. But I kept him with me. Unsure what to do or where to go, I continued on up to Pewter City, I continued on up to Pewter City, but the woods were thick. I started losing my way. I was tired. I was hungry. I was depressed. After three days I gave up. And that was when I first started having the visions."

Joe's attention became keener. He sat up, interested further in his uncle's story. During his travels Joe had experienced visions of his own. They had warned him of people important to his journey, of bad events that would happen and of specific things involving his past. His uncle had later explained to him that he too had suffered those same visions, as well as a couple of other heroes who later emerged. He was interested in knowing what exactly these visions had told him.

"I was sleeping in the brush of the woods, trying to stay dry from the rain, when I had my first vision." Walker told him. "At least I thought it was my first at the time. I later remembered the one I had seen before Malin passed. It came to me as a dream. At first it showed me the path out of the woods. Then it simply showed me a group of faces, and the names belonging to them. The vision indicated that I should find these people and unite them together somehow. It didn't say how, or why. It only said who they were and where I'd find them. I was unsure whether I should hunt on the whim of a dream. For all I knew these people may not even exist. But I had nowhere to go, and no way of surviving by myself. I had to try. So I followed the path it had shown me out of the forest and I set about finding these people that the vision had told me about.

The first one I found was in Pewter City, thankfully not too far away. His name was Alaric Macey. He worked in a mechanics shop. I had no idea what I would tell him. I couldn't exactly say I had been told by a dream to get his help. But I learned quickly by asking around that he had been a victim of Team Rocket. His pokémon had been taken from him almost a year ago. I realised I could use this to get his aid. I managed to pull him aside and explain to him what I needed. I told him about how I used to work for Team Rocket, but how I'd also abandoned their cause and burned the base down in an attempt to stop them and free as many pokémon as I could. He did ask me if I'd seen his pokémon, but I hadn't. I don't remember what pokémon it was, but there hadn't been one in the cages there when I freed them. He was rather reluctant but he decided to join me. It didn't take long for us to get to know each other. We weren't really friends yet, but we were close enough. Good companions. He helped me make my way to Cerulean City, where the next person from the vision was.

The second person was called Landon Labelle. He worked in a pokémart of all places, yet he had quite a smart mind. He had also been a victim of Team Rocket. His store had been raided multiple times, for both money and produce. When I explained that I had been part of Team Rocket he nearly kicked me out immediately. Alaric managed to persuade him to hear me out. It was tough but we managed to convince Landon to join us. None of us knew yet what reason we were grouping up for, but I knew that there had to be one. It had to be important. This wasn't just some ordinary dream you had.

The final face belong to a man called Bartholomew Vann. He lived in Saffron City. He was also Ex-Team Rocket, like me, except he had quit much earlier than I had. I later learned that he had faked his own death to get out of the group. They hadn't hunted him down because of that. We also learned he still had a sister in that awful group. He was the easiest to convince. He joined us without question. And thank god he did. He was the best fighter out of all of us, both physically and in a pokémon battle.

By this point I had gathered together the people my vision had mentioned, yet I knew not what to do with them. I could easily gather the strings. We were all involved with Team Rocket in some way. But not until another four nights did I learn what we were all gathered together for. I had another vision. This time it simply said two sentences. 'Stop Team Rocket. Defeat Giovanni'. And that was it. All it said were those five words. Stop Team Rocket. Defeat Giovanni. That wasn't much to go by at first, but I quickly learned what I could do to stop them. I had already noticed our similarities but it took a little thinking to realise how we could use that to our advantage. Alaric had lost something very important to him because of Team Rocket. He understood the loss felt from their cruelty. Landon had seen them forcefully take everything he needed to make a living. He understood the effect they could have on someone's livelihood. Bartholomew had a family member still with their group. He understood the pain of wanting to help them escape. And I had seen and suffered everything they had done over the course of their existence. I knew what they were like. I knew what they thought. I knew what they could do, how they would think, how they would act. All these things we could use against them. We could stop them, just the four of us, if we planned properly.

You must remember that, at this point in time, Team Rocket was still a more underground group. They didn't pull off the same public stunts that they're famous for now. They would only attack when they knew they could probably get away with it, and they'd never attack a large group of people. It'd usually be at night, just before shops were closing up, when people were at their most vulnerable. I knew all of this from my years in their group, and I knew how to take advantage of it. We would need a plan. We would need time. We would need to work together if we ever wanted to stop what they were doing.

We formed a group together, the four of us. We called ourselves the Valiant Guardians. It wasn't terribly creative, but it was memorable. We started working together to plan out our actions. Simply stopping raids from their group wasn't enough. We need to cut the head off the hydra and burn away the neck so that no additional heads would grow out. But to do that we needed to get stronger. I decided early on that I would be the one to confront Giovanni. He had forced me to go through so much. He had been the one to make me a part of his group in the first place. And he still had my brother under his rule. I had to get stronger to beat him. So I set out to defeat the rest of the gym leaders of Kanto. I still had my original three badges, and excluding Giovanni there were another four left to defeat. While I was doing that the other three went about planning ways to stop as many raids as they could. That would get Giovanni's attention, and keep it off of me. I needed as much time as I could get. I defeated the remaining gym leaders. I caught new pokémon. I evolved Arco. After almost three solid months of non-stop training I had obtained my seven badges. My team were as strong as they could be. I had a solid team of six members, some of who I kept with me and I still use to this day. I was certain that we were strong enough to deal with Giovanni and whoever he sent after us. But while I was busy training my friends were suffering greatly.

I had a fourth vision, a vision of my friends in peril. The vision told me to head to Vermillion, so that's where I headed immediately. I trusted the visions by this point. They hadn't been wrong yet. I found my friends hiding out in a small unoccupied house in Vermillion City. They had been attacked by Team Rocket, in public. The first public incident involving Team Rocket. I found Alaric and Bartholomew there waiting for me. They both carried bruises from the fight, but they were not badly hurt. There was no sign of Landon. No one had seen what happened to him. He never showed up. We had to assume the worst. Team Rocket knew who we were. Somehow they'd found out about our group. We had no time left to prepare. Either we dealt with them or they dealt with us. Bartholomew spent a lot of time worrying about his sister. He'd got a letter from her, with unnerving information. As for Alaric, he was more enraged then I'd ever seen him. He looked ready to explode at the first mention of that awful group. But during this time of concern all I could think about was my lack of effort to aid my only remaining friends, but also I had a concern that I had caused their suffering by the actions I had taken in escaping.

We set to work on planning quickly how we would stop Team Rocket. Alaric had the information I had escaped with from their base, and he'd managed to decipher most of it. Landon had helped him with that before he'd disappeared. I hadn't known it at the time, but apparently he'd had a lot of experience in the science areas. Only recently he'd started working in a pokémart after he'd fallen on hard times. I only realised then how he was useful to us. It was too late to say thank you. It was too late to even say goodbye.

Alaric saved us a lot of time and effort thanks to the work he and Landon had done. The information I'd recover was on how to use energy from pokémon attacks and transfer it through manmade objects. We only had some much to work with, but Alaric was able to pull this off. He had already managed to pull it off once, creating a simple metal glove with wires down the knuckles. It was supposed to turn random energy in the air around it into one of a few certain pokémon moves dependant of the user's choice."

"That sounds like what Archer was using." Joe interrupted quietly. "His Pokémon Move Emulation Device."

"It was probably the same idea." Walker agreed. "This was information made by Team Rocket. It's possible they still had that information somewhere. On a spare file in some locker." He paused, continuing his story. "Landon was originally supposed to use the glove. He had helped make it, he had used a glove he owned to create it. But he was no longer around, so I used it instead. It took another couple of months to create the rest of these objects. By the end of that time we had three more tools to use in stopping Team Rocket and defeating Giovanni. One of them was the shield that I gave to you, Joe. The others were a retractable metal and wood Bo staff with an energy pack for extra force, and the other was a ring that contained so much strength in it that it'd instantly knock out anyone it hit."

"Silver's ring!" Joe gasped suddenly. Walker nodded slowly.

"I thought I recognised it when you explained it to me at Christmas. It sounded like something I had once owned." Walker explained. "The ring we used to create it was the ring my mother had left me. Silver had that same ring, and now you have it. I don't know how he got it, or who gave it to him, but I have a few ideas. I gave that ring to Bartholomew. I told him to give it to his sister the next time he saw her, so she could protect herself if she needed to."

"Does Silver know?" Joe asked him.

"I don't know." Walker told him honestly. "I asked him if I could see it, which he agreed to. That's how I realised it was the same ring. I didn't tell him that I recognised it. He didn't need to know. He'd already stated that he doesn't care about his past anymore. It wouldn't have been right for me to press him about it."

"Surely if you once owned it you'd want it back." Joe suggested.

"I can live without it." Walker told him. "I already had one of our old weapons, and I passed that on to you. I don't need a second one." He paused, trying to remember where he'd been. Then he remembered. "So as I said, we assigned the weapons to ourselves. I had the shield and the glove, Bartholomew had the ring and Alaric had the Bo Staff. He and Bartholomew had decide to fend of whatever Rocket Grunt tried to attack me while I was taking on Giovanni. And that was our plan.

We set off for Viridian City the next day, and we reached it after a ten day walk. Arco and the rest of my team were ready to fight. Alaric and Bartholomew were prepared to do what may need to be done. We found the gym and we burst in, fully armed. Giovanni was in the middle of a gym battle at the time, which was perfect. I'll never forget the expression on his face. He looked both stunned and confused. It was truly a picture. We hadn't even stepped ten feet into the room before Rocket Grunts came crawling out of the woodwork. Thankfully Alaric and Bartholomew were both able to hold them back. I confronted Giovanni then and there. The poor trainer who was caught in between this was terrified. I requested a battle with Giovanni and he was only too eager to accept it. And while he and I battled my friends kept his grunts off us.

I believed I was strong enough to defeat Giovanni, but I was not as strong as I thought I was. Giovanni was a much more skilled trainer then I had before assumed. I suppose I should have known that considering he was a gym leader, but I had grown cocky about my skills as a trainer. Giovanni used ground types, the worst kind I could have faces. None of my pokémon were strong against ground types. It was a flaw I had failed to spot. Arco went through so much strain simply trying to take out his Golem. It was a long fight but eventually I won, if only just. By the end I had only Arco left, and Giovanni had lost. This was the first time I'd seen him truly speechless. Clearly he hadn't expected to lose. That surprise quickly turned into anger. I made only one demand of him. He was to disband Team Rocket and return all the pokémon he had stolen. Of course he said no. Honestly I don't know what I expected him to say. But I was still young minded at the time and unhealthily determined. I continued to press my demand upon him, and he continued to deny me. So I did the only think I could. I burned the building down."

"You burned it down twice?" Joe asked, chuckling a little. The idea was amusing.

"I did." Walker told him, also chuckling. "Looking back it is kind of funny." He admitted. He chuckled for a while until he finally returned to his story. "Of course Giovanni was even more furious at me. As the building burned down he cursed me and every member of my family for being the monsters we were. And then I left. Alaric, Bartholomew and I escaped without much trouble, we'd all been closest to the door. We also made sure that the kid got out, and I gave him my eighth badge as a sign of apology. I didn't need it after all. And the gym burned down, just like that. A fire truck arrived quickly, and fire men tried to put the flames out, but Arco had been too efficient in igniting the building for it to be put out in time. I don't know how many escaped. I didn't like the idea of being a murdered. But from the repot it sounded like most people had gotten out unscathed. Thankfully there'd been no bodies found at least. But part of me also felt annoyed. Giovanni had gotten away. He had lost his base and his people had been dispersed, but he was still free and most likely unwilling to change his ways. But it turned out that I was no longer needed for dealing with Team Rocket. It took another couple of years before they decided to show up again, and by that point there were others to deal with them. I think Giovanni had learned by the second time that his plans would never work, even if the people against him didn't burn down his base of operation. He seems to have changed his ways since then, as you saw yourself. I was the last person who'd expected him to help you defeat Archer, considering that Archer was one of his most loyal followers. But I guess it is possible for bad men to change their ways." Walker sighed. "But as you saw bad men have a habit of creating worse me. Archer took over after Giovanni left, and he turned Team Rocket from a simple group of thieves into a band of murderous, xenophobic, abominable monsters bent on destroying everything humanity has worked for. Thank god that man is dead."

There was a small silence in the room, to which no one wanted to disturb. Joe however had a question to ask.

"Was that the end of the story?" He asked.

Walker slowly shook his head.

"No." He said sadly. "No, that is not the end. There's always a final scene after the last act before the credits of a movie." He held his head a little. "Our group quickly separated after that. Bartholomew went off with his sister, who he'd found soon after the fire. She was pregnant. She wouldn't say who the father was, but we had our suspicions. He kept the power ring." Walked nodded slightly. "As for Alaric he went back to Pewter City and returned to his shop. I didn't hear much from him after that. He never found his pokémon, yet it seemed he no longer felt down about it. I had helped him come to terms with his loss, and during our time against Team Rocket he had found a new pokémon to care for. He no longer had the Bo staff. That had been lost in the fire. And as for myself, I could finally return home.

When I got there I learned that my parents had moved away a few years earlier. They had thought my brother and I were dead, and they couldn't take living in the same house without us. I never found out what happened to them after that. I had no trouble buying the house. At first I took up lodgings as a free worker under the eye of the farms new owner, then I bought the house, and then when I had enough money I bought the farm completely. I got used to it. The couple who had bought it were very nice. They knew I had lived here before. I was sixteen at that time, and when I finally owned the house I was seventeen. I never found my brother. I never knew what happened to him, and I still don't. But then, one night, the final chapter of my story happened."

"This is where I come in, isn't it." Joe said.

Walker nodded.

"It was two in the morning. I heard a knock at the front door." He began. "I was half awake at the time. It had been a long say. It was early January at the time. I opened the door, and there was my brother, a ball of rags in his arms. And in those rags was a tiny baby. You, my boy. You were barely a month old, and you were so small. You did nothing but whine all the time that your father held you. He looked at me solemnly and explained everything that had happened since I'd destroyed their base for the first time all those years ago. He had escaped the fire that night and had continued to work with Team Rocket. And in that time he'd fallen in love with another grunt. A girl called Catherine Green. Your mother, Joe. Your father explained how Team Rocket had made him a commander in their ranks, and how Giovanni was yet again planning to steal pokémon from people. Neither he nor your mother would be able to take care of you. Giovanni would most likely have you killed if he found out you existed. He asked me in desperation that I not get involved, for your sake. He wanted me to raise you properly, as he knew he couldn't. He didn't want you ending up like him. I promised to care for you. I was no father, but I could probably be a good enough uncle to you." He looked up at Joe. "I hope I was." He muttered.

Joe smiled at his uncle. "I'm sitting here before you right now." He said. "So you must have done something right."

His uncle smiled back. "Thank god for that." He muttered. "And that's where it ended. Your father left you with me, and I took care of you up until you were ready to take care of yourself. As for Team Rocket, there were others who would deal with them. Red from Pallet town and Gold from New Bark Town both did an excellent job at ending their second attempt, and then of course you ended Archer's empire of destruction." He held his head a little. "And there my story ended, and your story began."

Joe sat back in his seat, mulling over the information.

"And what of the fifth vision?" Joe asked. "You forgot to mention that."

Walker nodded slowly. "That happened the same night that you showed up." He explained. "I dreamt of the pokémon Mew speaking to me. It told me of a hero, as great as the ones of the past, rising up from nothing and ending an oncoming war that would almost happen in his time. It told me of how he would become one of the most powerful pokémon trainers in his lifetime. It told me not of how he looked or what he'd do, but simply of his name. Joe. A simple, easy, recognisable name that could belong to anyone. I awoke and figured it would never be important in my lifetime. But then your father showed up at my door. The last thing he told me is that he hadn't named you. He and your mother had thought of a few names, but had not chosen any as your first. One of those names was Joseph, which would later be shortened to Joe. I didn't know at the time what would happen to you. How could I have known? But out of hope I chose your name. Joseph Derek Arthur Glende. And that's the end."

Joe's uncle sat back, exhausted from his story. There was a long silence.

"Thank you for telling me this, uncle." Joe told him. Walker Glende nodded.

"You deserved to know." He said. "Honestly I feel better for telling it." He was quiet for a second, then he added. "I'm not proud of what I did, you know."

"I know."

"I can never forgive myself for letting those monsters do what they did to so many people."

"It wasn't your fault. You did stop them."

"I know. I just wish I'd done so sooner. Many people suffered because I didn't stand up sooner."

"But you did stand up." Joe reminded him. "Isn't that what's important?"

"I guess." Walker agreed. He sat there in quiet for a little while. Then he stood up. "It's late." He said. "Would you like me to take you home?"

"No." Joe told him. "I told my mom that I was staying here tonight. I can go back tomorrow. She'll be okay."

"Alright." Walker told him. "I'm very tired." He muttered, putting the fire out with a small hanging kettle of water and heading for the stairs. "Good night, Joe." Walker said with a yawn.

"Goodnight, Uncle." Joe said as his uncle disappeared up the stairs. He sat there for a little while longer, mulling over his uncle's tale. He understood why his uncle had been so defensive about his past now. There was much there that incriminated him. Yet it was also clear that he had moved on from that, and that he'd tried to correct those wrongs. He'd raised Joe after all, and he'd turned out okay. He wasn't a villain. If anything he was a hero. So why did he think so badly of himself about it. Joe shrugged to himself. Maybe it was just left over self-loathing for what he'd done. He himself had moments in his life he hated himself for. But his uncle was not Giovanni or Archer. He knew right from wrong. But he had told him his story now, as Joe had requested. Now it was time to forget it and move on.

Beside him Ralph woke up once more. He looked at Joe with confusion.

"Cro?" He asked. Joe looked at him with a small smile.

"Ralph, you fool." He said quietly. He patted his friend on the wing. "Come on. It's time we turned in too."

* * *

 **This chapter has come out a bit earlier then I expected, so there may be a few small mistakes. I have done my best to fix any I spotted, but if you should spot any please point them out to. The next chapter won't be this quickly released. Thanks for reading this far. Sorry that this was a long and rather boring chapter. But don't worry, there'll be much more that happens after this.**


	3. Chapter 3: A Letter

Joe had forgotten how it felt sleeping in his old room. It was surprisingly more comfy then he remembered. Nostalgia came flooding back to him the second he stepped inside. The old drawings on the walls, the posters, the plush toys he'd played with as a young child. It felt like millennia ago now. It hadn't even been a year yet since he'd become a trainer. He missed a bit of his life before his adventure. The innocence and simplicity of being a child. He knew he could never get it back, but he would find a way to be happy as he became an adult. He could always keep traveling. He missed that too. He'd been living with his mother in Cherrygrove city for several months now. She was an okay person. He'd been so elated to finally meet her. But now that elation had died down, and they'd gotten to know each other more. His mother was overall kind, but she had a short temper and was also rather strict. They had already had several arguments. It was probably a good thing for Joe to get some time away from her. He'd noticed her sneaking out a wine bottle from the cupboard when she thought he wasn't looking, several times in fact. He had gotten use to the slight difficulty with living with her, but every now and then he felt he had to get away for a day. When that happened he came to see his uncle. That was what today had been. Unfortunately that built up anger had been taken out on him instead, which had led to their argument and then his uncle's story.

Joe collapsed onto the bed, barely bothering to change into his pyjamas, and fell asleep within minutes. He often didn't remember his dreams, and the ones he did remember were always dark and terrifying, including both subtle silence and deformed monstrosities. Part of him couldn't help but wonder if this was normal. He assumed that it probably wasn't. But this night he remembered his dream. He was trapped in a cage the size of a matchbox, and at the other end of the cage was a massive monstrosity. The monstrosity rushed towards him, and before at struck he awoke with a start.

There was something tapping on the window. Joe sat up and got out of his bed. Ralph was already awake and barking at the window, angry to have been awoken so suddenly. A pidgey sat outside it, a rolled up piece of paper tied to its leg and its small beak tapping lightly on the glass.

"What in the world?" Joe wondered groggily. He could not fathom why a bird was delivering him mail to his bedroom window. He lifted the glace pane up and looked at the bird. It stopped and looked back at him. It chirruped and pointed its beak to the piece of paper.

"A letter?" Joe asked.

"Pidg-ey." It said.

Joe untied the piece of paper and held it in his fingers. The pidgey chirruped again and took off, flying away without a second look. Joe closed the window.

"That was odd." He muttered. "Why was a pidgey delivering to my window? That's not happened before."

"Cro?" Ralph said, just as confused. Joe hummed.

He rolled the piece of paper out in his hands. It was a small piece of A5 paper, with writing scrawled across it.

"A letter?" He realised. He read the message on it.

 ** _'_** ** _Dear Joseph Glende_**

 ** _You seek out the truth and now it has found you._**

 ** _If you wish to understand the questions that still plague you then seek me out. Look for the Red Path in Victory Road and it will lead you to me. Bring the crobat with you._**

 ** _I will be waiting._**

 ** _A friend'_**

Joe finished reading the letter.

"A friend?" He said. "Does this person know me? He must if he sent me this letter. And what questions will he answer?" He turned to Ralph who looked just as confused. He probably hadn't understood a word Joe had read. "What do you think, buddy?" Joe asked his companion.

Ralph shrugged. "Cro." he said.

Joe read the letter again, confused. Why where they requesting Ralph to be there as well? Why was he relevant? And then a possible thought struck him.

"You don't think…" Joe began. He was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Good morning!" His uncle's voice came from the other side. Joe automatically slid the paper into his pocket.

"Morning, uncle." He called back.

"You up?" Walker's voice asked.

"I'll be down in a minute." Joe told him.

"Okay." His uncle said. "Breakfast's done."

The sound of footsteps walking down the hallway took the place of Walker Glende's voice. Joe sighed a little. He was unsure if he should tell his uncle about the letter. He probably would have some insight into what Joe should do. But at the same time Joe wasn't sure if that was a good idea. He knew his uncle. He'd most probably worry about him, and then try to intervene. And there was something else. Deep down Joe felt that he shouldn't tell him. A little voice said that he didn't need to know. He could just leave for a day, and then come back and make up some simple story to explain where he was. And if this did turn out to be a hoax then he wouldn't be downhearted by it.

With a new smug smile Joe got changed and hurried downstairs, Ralph following behind him. He made it down stairs to find his breakfast waiting for him at the table. His uncle had cooked up an omelette for him.

"Did you sleep well?" Walker Glende asked.

Joe nodded, chewing down a piece of omelette.

"Yes, uncle." He said, smiling nicely at him. His uncle smiled back.

"Good." He said.

Joe continued to finish the omelette is silence, grabbing a few pieces of toast in the process and eating them too. Ralph also got something to eat. Walker had left him out a bowl of hot soup, which Ralph glugged down surprisingly quickly. When they had finished Joe got up from his chair and spoke again.

"Hey Uncle Walker?" He asked. His uncle turned with a warm smile. "Ralph and I are going to go up to Victory Road and train for the day." He said.

His uncle seemed surprised.

"You trained yesterday." He told him.

"Yes…" Joe said. "But I wanted to train more… against other trainers… that I don't already know."

Joe's uncle still seemed a little surprised, but he shrugged and nodded his head.

"Go ahead." Walker told his nephew. "If that's what you want to do today then go ahead. Just be back before the sun comes down, okay."

"Okay, uncle."

Joe and Ralph left the house in a hurry. Joe had already packed some food and equipment into his bag. He had everything he felt he'd need: potions, revives, sandwiches for him, pokémons snacks for Ralph, water for them both, healing drugs in case of status ailments. The only thing he hadn't packed were pokeballs. Joe didn't need to catch any new pokémon. He was happy with the ones he already had. It was unlikely he'd need to use them in his travels. One thing he had decided to do which was strange was leave all his other pokémon behind. The only one he was taking with him was Ralph. He had struggled with this choice at first, but he'd come to the conclusion that this person wanting to see him probably wasn't that dangerous. And if he was, Ralph could deal with them.

He was ready to go, but he didn't set of just yet. First he decided to make a call on his PokeNav. He switched the device on, typed in a number and then waited for a few seconds for the device to connect. After that time the small screen switched on and the face of a girl with long ginger hair appeared on it. She looked like she'd just woken up. She was yawning a lot, her hair was tatty and she was still wearing her pyjamas.

"Morning, Winter." Joe said. The girl on the other end of the call smiled in mid yawn.

"Hey, Joe." She said back, trying to be cheerful. "Why are you calling me so early?"

"It's ten o'clock in the morning." Joe told her.

"I was up late last night." Winter argued. "They've got me training a lot in the dark recently."

"How's the practicing for gym leader going?" Joe asked.

Winter shrugged. "Pretty good." She told him. "They like me, that's for certain. Don't know if they think I'm good enough for the job yet. I need to keep training and practicing to make sure."

"Hey Winter…" Joe began, changing the subject to himself. "Ralph and I were going to head up to Victory Road for the day. Do you want to come with?" Winter seemed a little surprised.

"Why are you going all the way up there?" She asked.

Joe felt this time that he should tell her about why he was going up there. Winter was his girlfriend after all, she probably deserved to know what he was going there for. He also knew her well. She would worry, but she wouldn't panic or demand that he not go.

"I got a letter." Joe told her simply. "It said that someone who knew answers to questions about my past wanted to see me, and that I could find them by following a path in Victory Road. I don't know how true that all is, but if he's telling the truth it may be worth the journey."

Winter clearly looked shocked by this. She seemed to be picking through a bunch of questions in her head. In the end she asked them all at once."

"Who sent the letter? How did they learn where you live? Why did they send it to you? Why do they care about telling you the truth? What is this truth they want to tell you? Why…"

Joe was flustered by this rush of questions.

"I don't know." He interrupted her. "But considering that they've clearly gone through the trouble of contacting me, it may be worth it."

"I wouldn't be so sure." Winter warned him, jumping into concerned mode. "I certainly wouldn't trust a random letter some stranger sent me. Why would they want to meet you in Victory Road? That seems like a very suspicious location to meet."

"It's not too suspicious." Joe told her. "I mean, Victory Road always has trainers traveling in it."

"Did they ask you to come alone?" Winter asked him.

"No, actually." Joe said. "They asked that I bring Ralph. That does seem a little odd, but maybe there's a reason they want him there. Besides, I won't be alone if he's with me."

Ralph, who was flying beside Joe, nudged his large face into view, his eye blinking at the corner of the screen.

"That's actually why I called you, Winter." Joe continued. "I wondered if you'd like to come with us. We could see what this person wants to tell me together. It wouldn't take you long to get to Indigo Plateau from Cerulean City, maybe an hour or so. You wouldn't be far behind me. What do you think?"

Winter seemed to pause, deep in thought. Her expression seemed to mix with multiple emotions as she struggled to say something.

"Joe…" She said, stretching her words out and speaking uncertainly. "I'd love to have another adventure with you, I really would… but I can't. Not right now."

Joe looked crestfallen. "How come?" He asked.

Winter scratched the back of her head awkwardly. "Well, you see… things here at the gym have been getting tougher for me… I've got my final today. It's important that I pass it."

"How important?" Joe asked.

"If I pass I can become a gym leader at my own gym." Winter told him seriously. "It's a once in a lifetime opportunity for me. I've been training for years. I hope you understand."

Joe's smile turned upside down. "I understand." He said sadly.

"But I'll come see you when I get back." She added quickly. "I'd like to know what you learned, if this person is indeed honest and not a fraud of some kind."

Joe's smile did not come back. "Sound's good." He said weakly. Winter picked up on his sad tone.

"Maybe one of the others would like to join you? What about your uncle?"

"I haven't told him." Joe explained. "I don't want him to worry."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Winter asked.

"I can deal with any problems I may have." Joe told her. "I think most of the others are busy as well, and I'd rather not ask them all. If I'm gone to long they might tell my uncle where I've gone."

Winter yawned. "Right. Well, I've got to get some more rest for the test. Good luck. I hope you find this guy, and that he's telling the truth."

"Goodbye, Winter." Joe muttered.

The call ended. Joe stood in silence for a little while, the PokeNav resting in his half limp arm, until Ralph gently nudged him and snapped him out of his thoughts. Joe sighed and chuckled to himself.

"Seems it's just the two of us from here on out." He said, trying to seem cheerful. Ralph looked at him. Joe did his best to smile back, but his strength had left him. "Come on then." He said, slapping his companion on the back. "Let's get going before we die as ignorant beings."

* * *

 **I'd just like to quickly apologise for how short this chapter was. I've been struggling with what to write over the last week so I've decide to make this one rather short just so I don't waste to much energy in one are. This is also the reason why this chapter was a day late. The next chapter should be longer and on time.**


	4. Chapter 4: The Red Path

The flight to Indigo Plateau was relatively calm. The weather was slightly cloudy with a small gust of wind, though not nearly enough to cause turbulence. The sun still managed to find a way to shine through the thin white clouds. The sky was a nice pure blue, and it wasn't too cold either. In fact the day was practically perfect, not too uncomfortable in any areas.

After over an hour of flight Ralph landed outside of the large building that was the Kanto and Johto league and Joe pushed himself from his back and onto his own feet once more. They had been to the Indigo Plateau several times now, twice to actually fight the leagues. Joe was still astounded that he'd won both times. He was also astounded that he'd done so in just one try each time. He'd heard the horror stories from other trainers who'd tried before and since. Even Tom, who was the current champion of the Kanto region and one of Joe's oldest friends, had apparently had to face them twice. Joe had only learned later that Tom had tried once before he and Joe ran into each other again. The second time was just before Joe went in to try, and somehow he'd gotten lucky. Then he'd gotten unlucky and Joe had beaten him in the battle for the title of champion. However Joe had turned the other down because of two reasons. The first was that he wasn't actually interested in being champion, he just wanted to see how far he could get. But more importantly it was something that Tom, a friend he'd had since he was at preschool, wanted to be champion much more then him, and he'd certainly put more effort and practice into it. Joe had let him keep the title, out of respect mostly.

But all of that had been a year ago nearly, give a few months' time. Joe felt an odd nostalgia for the place. It had been an important part of his life, like many other places in both Kanto and Johto were now important parts of his life. He wouldn't forget the first time he set foot in Viridian Forest and the first pokémon he ever caught, the first gym he defeated, the first time he went to Johto, the first Johto pokémon he'd caught, the day he met Silver, the second day he met Silver, the third day he met Silver…, The memories went on like branches up a tall oak tree. They were memories now, as recognisable yet as translucent as mist over water. He didn't know if Ralph had similar feeling for those places. He assumed he did. Ralph may not be human, but he was sentient… supposedly. He certainly had the personality of a human.

And now here he was, back at Indigo Plateau, facing Victory Road once again. Except this time he was going to go through it backwards.

With a smug and attempted upbeat smile at Ralph, Joe hitched his bag up onto his back and set off into the rocky caverns of Victory Road.

No one at this present date in history could properly explain why Victory Road had been created inside a large rock formation on a hillside. It had been there for more then a few hundred years at least. Some theorised that it originally had been a straight path up the hill, but after several earthquakes the mountainous areas nearby shifted slightly and several areas of more rocky ground were pressed together to make one large stone mound. Other suggest that this is total crap, that the caverns have always been there and they simply dug pathways through them so that wannabe champion trainers had a tougher journey.

For whatever reason it existed, Victory Road proved to be a properly harrowing route to progress through. Joe had been through it twice in his life time, and both times he'd been lucky to avoid a large majority of the trainers practicing there. There hadn't been many trainers practicing there on both those days. Today however it seemed that he was out of luck. A pile of highly skilled trainers were lining up at the doorway, all trying to shove their ways in to train against the strong wild pokémon there and fight one another later on. Joe and Ralph were forced to wait at the back of the line as one by one the trainers ahead shuffled inside in single file.

When they were finally inside they'd barely taken a few steps ahead before a trainer in red clothing, evidently from Kanto due to his accent and pokémon choice, challenged him to a Pokémon Battle. Unable to say no because of pride and rules, Joe challenged the trainer. The fight went something like this.

 _Trainer BLANK sent out Machoke_

 _Joe: "Go, Ralph!"_

 _Trainer BLANK: "Dynamic Punch!"_

 _Ralph evaded the attack._

 _Joe: "Fly!"_

 _Ralph flew up high._

 _Trainer BLANK: "Submission!"_

 _Machoke's attack missed._

 _Ralph used fly. It was super effective._

 _Machoke fainted. Trainer BLANK withdrew Machoke._

 _Trainer BLANK sent out Fearow._

 _Trainer BLANK: "Drill Peck!"_

 _Fearow used Drill Peck. It hit._

 _Joe: "Cross Poison"_

 _Ralph used Cross Poison. It hit. Fearow was poisoned._

 _Trainer BLANK: "Fury Attack!"_

 _Fearow used Fury Attack. It hit twice. Ralph evaded the remaining attacks._

 _Joe: "Steel Wing!"_

 _Ralph used Steel Wing. Fearow avoided the attack._

 _Trainer BLANK: "Pursuit!"_

 _Fearow used Pursuit. It hit._

 _Joe: "Steel Wing!"_

 _Ralph used Steel Wing. It hit. Fearow Fainted._

 _Trainer BLANK withdrew Fearow._

 _Trainer BLANK sent out Golduck._

 _Trainer BLANK: "Psychic!"_

 _Golduck used Psychic. Ralph evaded the attack._

 _Joe: "Fly!"_

 _Ralph flew up high._

 _Trainer BLANK: "Hydro Pump!"_

 _Golduck used Hydro Pump. It hit._

 _Ralph used Fly. His attack missed._

 _Joe: "Confuse Ray!"_

 _Ralph used Confuse Ray. Golduck became confused._

 _Trainer BLANK: "Disable!"_

 _Golduck hurt itself in confusion._

 _Joe: "Cross Poison!"_

 _Ralph used Cross Poison. It was a critical hit._

 _Golduck Fainted. Trainer BLANK withdrew Golduck._

 _Trainer BLANK is out of usable pokémon. Trainer BLANK exclaimed in anger._

Joe and Ralph continued on their search for this fabled Red Path that the letter had spoken off, now more tired for their fighting. They had barely gone ten minutes before another fight ensued, this time with a younger female trainer. She was clearly a trainer from Johto. The fight went something like this.

 _Trainer THINGY sent out Quagsire._

 _Joe: "Go, Ralph."_

 _Ralph groaned._

 _Trainer THINGY: "Earthquake!"_

 _Quagsire used earthquake. Ralph was unaffected. Everyone else was slightly bruised._

 _Joe: "Cross Poison!"_

 _Ralph used Cross Poison. It hit. Quagsire was poisoned._

 _Trainer THINGY: "Slam!"_

 _Quagsire used Slam. Ralph avoided the attack._

 _Joe: "Steel Wing!"_

 _Ralph used Steel Wing. It hit._

 _Quagsire fainted. Trainer THINGY withdrew Quagsire._

 _Trainer THINGY sent out Granbull._

 _Trainer THINGY: "Crunch!"_

 _Granbull used Crunch. It hit._

 _Joe: "Steel Wing."_

 _Ralph used Steel Wing. It hit._

 _Granbull flinched._

 _Joe: "Cross Poison!"_

 _Ralph used Cross Poison. It hit_

 _Granbull fainted. Trainer THINGY withdrew Granbull._

 _Trainer THINGY is out of usable pokémon. Trainer THINGY cried._

Joe and Ralph attempted to avoid further confrontation from other trainers, but it seemed that the harder they tried the more they ran into. Nowhere was safe from them, and when you were trainer and another trainer challenged you to a pokémon battle you couldn't say no, no matter how busy you were. It was considered impolite. In fact it was considered offensive. Ignoring a battle request was like ignoring an order from the emperor himself. To do so was to bring utmost dishonour upon your family. It would also vilify you as a disreputable and untrustworthy trainer. It's the reason gym leaders and pokémon leagues have to say yes to trainers who challenge them… so long as they have the right badges beforehand at least.

Sadly Joe and Ralph were not a gym, nor a league. They were just one person and one crobat. They could only deal with so many trainers. Joe was already starting to regret not bringing any more of his pokémon with him. He couldn't really figure out why he'd decided against it. He'd been too sure of himself, and now he was in a spot of bother. Ralph could take out most of the pokémon they faces, but every now and then one would get a solid hit in. How much damage could Ralph take before he tired out so much that they had to go back?

Joe did his best to hide from other trainers and discover where they were indeed going. Two hours had passed. By that point Ralph was tired from the constant fighting that he was barely able to stay up on all fours. He drooped in the air like a levitating towel. Joe patted him on the back and attempted to keep their hopes up as they stopped in a small rocky alcove and get their energy back. Joe gave his pokémon something to eat. A simple chicken sandwich. Ralph was not official carnivorous, but he happily ate it up. By this point he'd been so hungry that he ate it up in one bite.

After they rested they continued the search and travelled further into the route, where thankfully less trainers inhabited at this point. It seemed most of them were sticking around the main entrance, so that they could get back to the plateau quickly if their pokémon fainted.

Joe continued to keep his eyes open for this illusive Red Path, but there was no sign of anything that could even possibly be close. After another few hours of walking, and a few more battles, Joe finally began to get frustrated. Soon after that he began to get angry. He muttered multiple obscenities under his breath, especially as he ran into more defiant trainers in his way. After another two hours of continuous walking, fighting, searching, fighting, resting, walking and fighting again, Joe finally snapped.

He dropped to his knees besides a rock wall, unable to walk any further. Ralph fell from his shoulders where he'd been resting in-between battles, clinging to his trainers back like a parasite. All the fighting had left them exhausted, but Joe was unwilling to go back and recover. They had to keep going. They had to find the Red Path. But there was no Red Path. Nothing around them, nothing in the cavern was coloured red. There were no paths, only crevices and tunnels and vast open areas. No coloured paths of any kind. He was on a fool's quest.

"What's the point?" He exclaimed in exhausted distress. "What's the bloody point? We've been walking for hours. There's been no sign of a path."

Ralph groaned beside him, barely able to move anymore. He was so tired out from all the battles he'd participated in that he couldn't even gather the strength to sit himself up. His wings flopped gracelessly at his side.

"C-c-crooooo!" Ralph groaned, flumping onto the floor hopelessly.

Joe grabbed a nearby stone and hurled it at the wall, where it shattered into multiple pieces. The stone dust that had accumulated where it hit scattered in a small spray of particles. Joe thumped the floor with his clenched fist and breathed heavily. Anger beset him like a flood over the land of panic and irritation.

"Why did I ever believe that a stupid letter from someone I didn't know could ever lead me to something I wanted?" He demanded. "Why was I so stupid? There's no Red Path! It doesn't exist. We're over halfway into the cave. We'd have seen it by now. Therefor it can't exist!" He reasoned. "I wasted my hope and my entire day on this pointless adventure!"

He sat down finally, his head in his hands. Ralph crawled up weakly beside him. The two of them sat there, looking and feeling both embarrassed with themselves and plain fed up. There didn't need to be a discussion. The second they'd gotten their strength back they'd leave. There was no point hanging around here in the caves. It wasn't exactly dangerous, any strong pokémon that lived there wouldn't pose much of a threat. It was just not completely safe, nor comfortable, especially at night when the caves became as black as ink.

After a minute Joe stood up again. He wiped stone dust from his face and sighed, straightening his trousers out which had been tarnished by the rock surface.

"We should head home." He muttered sadly. He sighed again. "Come on, buddy."

He knelt down again to pick up Ralph. As he did so his head turned towards the rock wall. He noticed a small dark mark indented into the stone. The mark had not been there before. Joe stared at it for a few seconds. It had a slight red tinge to it. Small specks of red dust dotted down around it. Red, Joe realised. It was red.

"No." He muttered quietly under his shocked breath. Forgetting about Ralph he stepped up to the wall and wiped a hand across the red mark. There stone dust was pushed away, and more red became visible from underneath. He brushed away more. More red was visible. It was faint, yet definitely there like a faded white cloud in a grey storm. It cut off after about a foot up, creating a straight edge line from left to right. Joe wiped the walls further down. That same line of rusted crimson was there, cutting off at the same point, staying the exact same colour.

"The red path." Joe realised. "We found it. It was on the walls all this time." He felt both proud and slightly embarrassed, although there was no one to be embarrassed for. The fact that he'd managed to miss it didn't make him feel too great, though it had been covered by a thick layer of dust. Joe looked down the wall. The line of iron rock seemed to stretch down further into the cave.

"It's pointing this way." Joe realised, running his finger across the red rock. The skin was coated in a thin layer of red dust. "Come on!"

He hurried down the cave, following the right wall, scraping away the dust as he went to make sure he was still following the path. Then he stopped after about ten steps. Ralph was still crawling after him, unable to stand up just yet. He turned and gave his friend an apologetic smile.

"Sorry." He said, walking back to his large, purple, winged friend. Ralph gave him a grumpy stare, growling slightly as he did so. Joe helped him onto his back and carried him on through the caves. "This should lead us out." He told him. Ralph didn't seem as eager or trusting as Joe was, but he didn't have much of a choice but to go with him.

The duo continued on through the caves, following the red marked wall as best they could. It lead them further into the caverns, away from all the bustling trainers and vast open areas and into the more cramps, enclosed tunnels. Soon the walls were closed together in a claustrophobic manner. The spaces they squeezed through became righter. But the bath kept on going. It was leading them away from Victory Road and into the more unmarked areas of the cavern. It was practically pitch black by this point. Joe was struggling to see where to go. Ralph however was adjusted to the dark. He pointed the way, making sure neither of them walked into any walls, or fell into any unsuspecting traps.

They continued on through the dark, through the dank, through the rock itself. And then suddenly there was light ahead. A faint glimmer through the cracks of the rock. It was glistening with intangible whiteness. There was a way outside ahead.

"Nearly there." Joe said as he ran towards the light. The tunnel was long, but the exit was ahead. They hurried forwards, running faster and faster. Ralph clung tight to his friend's shoulders.

And then suddenly they were outside. First there was bright whiteness and the rush of wind. Then the light faded and the wind died, and landscapes formed ahead of them. Under the midday sun hills had formed. A valley of grass, with a circling rock wall around it. It stretched on for maybe a few miles, until it hit the sharp mountainside. The rocks were too steep to climb. If they ever wanted to leave, they'd have to come back the way they came. But they had finally found the Red Path, and they'd followed it to their destination. At the furthest end of the small valley was a large house. A manor house, made of red brick, dark wood and clay tiles. It sat at the end of the valley, atop a small point up pushed up land, watching the valley itself and any who entered it.

"That must be the place." Joe muttered, letting Ralph of his shoulder. "The Red Path led us here. This must be where the person who sent me the message wanted to meet me."

He turned to his companion. Ralph was half asleep on the grass floor. The gaping entrance to Red Path was behind them now. Ralph flapped a wing half-heartedly.

"Don't worry, we can rest first." Joe told him.

Ralph gave a loud sigh of relief. He sprawled out on the grass, wings stretching and spine curving as he made himself comfortable.

Joe sat down beside him, smiling a little. His friend had the right idea. They were both exhausted and a nice rest would solve that problem. He lay down on the grass, his arms behind his head and his hat covering his face. They had made it to where they needed to go. The manor house ahead was bound to be where this person was waiting for them. There they'd learn about whatever he wanted to tell them.

Joe looked at the building in the distance from under his hat. It sat there still, watching him back. He couldn't help be feel that the windows were eyes staring into him. It seemed like a living creature. He could feel that across the mass of field and earth ahead there was someone at one of those windows watching him back, waiting for him to arrive and to enter into their domain.

* * *

 **Sorry that this chapter was also pretty short, but I feel I made up for that with the fight scenes. The next chapters should be much longer, and don't worry, I'll describe the fights in more detail for the rest of the story.**


	5. Chapter 5: A Glimpse of the Past

After a lengthy rest and a quick consumption of food, the two friends continued on once more, attempting to trek the small valley ahead of them. At first it was relatively easy. Just a slightly slanted slope of grass towards the basin. Not too difficult to get across. Then they came to a river. Again, no huge struggle with this. The only danger was the water itself. No pokémon seemed to inhabit this valley, and any that they did see were flying types, or other types with flight abilities. No trees, no tall grass, the river was not deep enough for life. But while the water was shallow, it was also quick. To be certain Joe waited to cross until he could find a log or stepping stones to traverse over.

Up to this point it had pretty much been a simple walk. But as they got closer to the house the grass began to spread out, as dry earth and rock took its place as the primary terrain. And then they reached the hill upon which the manor house was placed. Jagged rocks and massive boulders lay scattered like bowling balls across the hillside, almost mountainous in design. Each boulder seemed to be a small planet with its own gravitational orbit. The hill itself seemed to add additional weight to the climber unfortunate to try scaling it. Joe felt his own strength sapping as he tried to pull himself up the dry earth mound. He dared not use the boulders for support. They were sitting on loose soil, and applying force of any kind would most likely unsettle them.

But Joe didn't give up. He kept on climbing, Ralph doing his best to support and encourage him up. Ralph didn't have to use as much energy as Joe did. He had wings. Four of them. He could fly there is a second. But Joe couldn't. He'd have to take the longer route. So, out of respect, he stuck with him and helped him up. Neither of them had thought that morning that they'd have done so much walking and climbing again. It had been months since they last time they did any exercise like this, and frankly it was showing. Back during their Johto adventure Joe could have climbed this hill in seconds. As it was it was taking him minutes to get half that way currently.

Eventually, after much effort, they reached an area of hill at which the ground stopped sloping up so steeply. Joe collapsed, groaning. His feet ached. His arms were bruised. He curled up and breathed in the valley air.

"Next time you're carrying me up." He stated, giving Ralph a glare. Ralph looked very worried by that comment. He could carry Joe fine usually, he'd had plenty of practice, but the stare he was giving him suggested that Joe would give him more trouble next time than usual.

Joe sighed and sat up again. He looked ahead. Only a short distance away now was the red brick house, its misted windows, its black oak door and its unlit chimney sat majestically ahead of them. What person could have owned such a house? He wondered. Who would have lived here, out by themselves, in the middle of nowhere, away from anything?

Joe stood up and wiped the dirt and earth from his knees. "Well, we got here." He said, not all too excited. He turned to Ralph. His crobat companion was wearing the exact same expression as him. A sort of uncertain, fearful, curious cocktail, laminated over a hopeful smile. Joe coughed and pulled up his backpack. "Come on then."

He walked towards the door. He tested the handle. It wouldn't budge. He pushed on the wooden flame. It barely moved. He tried again, this time with more force. Not even an inch. He took a step back.

"Locked." He muttered. "That or very heavy." He looked to the left. Ralph was peering in through the window. "What are you doing?" Joe asked. Ralph didn't answer. Joe decided to change his question. "See anyone inside?" He asked.

Ralph shrugged. It was tough to see through the misted glass and past the pulled curtains. There wasn't any movement that was for certain, although movement was not a major definer for life. From what Ralph could make out he was looking into the living room. The inside was carpeted in red and black. The floor was red. The walls were the same red brick, but with slightly rotten red wallpaper over them. The ceiling was red. The furniture was red, except for a single three person sofa near the window which was black. The fireplace was made of red brick too. Charred wood and ash sat under the chimney, the flame having died eons ago. There were a few dark wood end tables next to a few dark wood chairs, with drink mats placed on them and a few various old drink stains from the people who hadn't used the drink mats. Apart from all this the room was barren. No signs of life were inside. It looked like this had been the case for quite some time.

Joe tried the door knocker. He knocked thrice. It made a hollow wood tap and echo. But no response came from inside. Joe hummed. "Someone must be home." He reasoned. "They called me all this way. They wouldn't drag me to a house I couldn't enter." The idea that this was all a massive wind up cross his mind, but Joe kicked that idea out of his head. He'd refuse to believe that was the case. He'd wait for a bit longer, try the door knocker again, and if that failed he'd find another way inside.

Ralph took a few steps away from the window. He had tried to open it, but that hadn't worked either. It seemed the house was locked shut on all fronts. There was no way of getting in without a key or illegal force. Ralph looked skyward. Maybe there was a way inside from the roof. He took a few more steps backwards, getting ready to fly up. And then he spotted movement at one of the second floor windows. Someone was standing there, watching them. Ralph couldn't make out details, but he could see the outline of a person. Someone was watching them at the front door, trying to enter their house. Ralph stared back at them. It was clear the person had seen them. Before he could cry out and get Joe's attention, the figure moved out of sight.

"Cro." Ralph said, trying to get Joe's attention. Joe turned, but before he could say anything there was the sound of a lock being turned.

The door swung slowly open with a loud creak. Joe's eyes snapped back to the house.

"It's open." He said, staring inside cautiously. "How did it do that?" He wondered. He took half a step forwards. Then suddenly Ralph sped past him in a blur of purple.

"Hey, Ralph, wait!" Joe called after him.

Ralph flew through the house and went straight up the stairs, not even bothering to fly up the steps but instead straight past them. Joe hurried after him, having no clue where he was going. Ralph reached the second floor and searched the corridor. He threw himself inside one specific room and looked out of the window. It was the same one he'd seen the person at. He had a straight view down on the front entrance. Someone had definitely been standing there. Someone had been watching them. Ralph looked around. But they weren't here anymore. They'd vanished into the house itself. But they couldn't have gone that far.

Joe finally arrived on the scene, panting a little. He hadn't expected to need to run up a flight of stairs so quickly.

"Ralph…" He asked, catching his breath. "What was that about?"

Ralph looked at him. He began tugging on the curtain and pointing out of the window. He was trying to explain that he'd seen someone, but he couldn't speak and he didn't know the right signs.

"I don't…" Joe said, catching his breath. "Did we need to run up here?"

Ralph looked out the window. He looked back inside. He looked out the window again. He turned to Joe.

"Cro?" He asked.

"I didn't see anything." Joe told him, assuming that's what he was trying to say. "You might have imagined it. That or you just saw a rattata." He patted his companion on the back. "Let's go look around properly." He said. "And forget about the rats."

Joe ushered his friend out of the room. Ralph went with him, but he did so reluctantly. He could still feel a presence watching him. He had seen someone at the window, and they hadn't gone away.

* * *

Joe and Ralph relaxed downstairs in the posh living room. Whoever had owned this mansion had been stinking rich, possibly more so then any normal billionaire. The kind of material they used in the furniture, the paintings on the walls, the cutlery, and the design of the rooms. It must have cost millions, if not billions of pounds. At least it must have cost that much in the past. Most of it was now old or tattered or moth-eaten or slightly chipped. Now who knew how much it'd cost. A smart and courageous thief could probably make a small fortune of things found in this house. But it seemed like no one had lived there for years now. Everything had been left untouched, almost fossilised. That left curiosity on how the door had opened though. It was locked before, and then it wasn't. Someone had to unlock it. Doors didn't unlock themselves.

But Joe could focus on that later. Right now he needed to rest for a minute. He sat down in one of the aging armchairs and finished the food he'd packed. He reasoned that he wouldn't be long, and now that he knew the way out he'd be able to make his way back to Indigo Plateau much quicker. Ralph rested on another chair not too far away. He seemed unusually alert, and Joe couldn't reason why. What had set him off like this? He was constantly looking around, and half the time double glancing as if he wasn't sure about what he'd seen. Joe was getting worried. He needed Ralph to help him find whoever was looking for him, if they were indeed here. He had to admit, there was something off about this place. It felt as if he was constantly being watched. He could have sworn that the eyes in one of the paintings had moved as he was looking away. But there was no point in focusing on that stuff right now. There was work to be done.

"Come on, Ralph." Joe called. "We should have a look around, see if there is anyone here."

Ralph seemed both very eager and very uncertain about looking around. Like Joe had noticed, he seemed skittish suddenly. On edge.

"Are you okay, Ralph?" Joe asked. "You seem very… unnerved."

Ralph glanced behind himself. No one was there. Joe looked past him.

"If there's anything here…" Joe began. Ralph turned and looked at him again. "If there's anyone here…" Joe continued. "And they turn out to be trouble… we'll be able to deal with them." He told him.

Ralph didn't seem to relax that much.

"I'll keep an eye out." Joe continued. "I won't rush blindly into rooms so long as you don't, okay?"

Ralph nodded.

"Alright then." Joe turned. "We should check this floor first." He said. "Just to make sure." Doesn't sound like anyone's here, though?" He walked out of the room and into the front hallway, Ralph following. He stuck to his trainer like a shadow, not leaving his side for any reason. This building unnerved him, but not because it was old and out of use. He felt he knew this place. More worryingly, he felt it knew him.

The first room they checked was what seemed to be a games room. There was a billiards table, a long wooden plank with legs and a couple of chairs around it, and several shelves full of dusty old board games, card packs and other table top entertainments. There were also a couple of bookshelves, with more pottery and ornaments then books on them. There seemed to be nothing to out of the ordinary in there.

They checked the next room. This one was a library. Every wall had a row of bookcases at it, some made of birch wood, some of oak, some of pine, some of elm, and some were even made from soft fern. Each seemed to be a different shade of brown and grey. On them hundreds of old books sat, looking as though they had been untouched for hundreds of years. Whoever had owned this house clearly hadn't read many books. A large portion of them were in tattered conditions, either missing pages, ripped, or even half burned in some cases. At the far room sat a piano under a dust sheet. Joe wondered if it's work. He decided not to try, in case he broke it or did something worse. They moved on to the next room.

The third room was a kitchen, which didn't take much to figure out. It had all the usual utensils in it: saucepans, frying pans, ladles, knives, chopping boards, bowls, plates, a sink, a few ovens, and a wok in one corner and what looked to be an indoor barbeque grill. The walls and floor were tiles in white and black. Everything was completely dirty. It wasn't just dust, it was mess. It seemed that someone had forgotten to clean up after themselves… multiple times. Joe and Ralph quickly realised that there wasn't much more to see, so they moved on hurriedly.

They found themselves back out in the far end of the main hall. They had made a full circle back.

"Seems that's every room down here." Joe said. "We should probably check upstairs now."

They did so. Joe found himself looking through various bedrooms, storage rooms and spare rooms, all seeming to come from different ages and varying in use. Some rooms seemed like they'd just been used, while others were so full of cobwebs it was as if a large ariados nest had moved in. Eventually they found a bathroom, which Joe couldn't have been more thankful for. After a quick stop they continued on once more. Soon enough they'd completely searched the second floor and found nothing. There was one last floor above them. Adventurously they hurried up the steps.

"There must be someone here." Joe reasoned as he checked the third room on the third floor. "We can't be alone. Someone has to be here. They wouldn't have invited us here if they weren't. We wouldn't have gotten inside if there weren't."

"Cro." Ralph said. He watched his friend search through the rooms, trying to find something that would give any sign that someone had been there recently. But so far there didn't seem to be anything. It appeared they were chasing shadows in a house of ghosts. One thing they had noticed however is that there was nothing depicting the original owner (or owners) of the house. There were painting all over the place, and even a few photos, but none of them had plaques. There didn't seem to be any people Joe could possibly recognise in any of the paintings. There were even dustless spaces where painting and photo frames had been, but were now removed by someone. Why someone had been removing them was tough to tell. It didn't seem that they'd been stolen. There were no signs of break in, and the house had been locked. It was a mystery.

"Maybe some kind of clue somewhere." Joe reasoned to himself. "Something! Somewhere! There has to be something!"

Ralph sighed and shook his head. He leaned against the doorway. It seemed that they were on a fools search.

He heard a creak down the corridor behind him. Ralph glanced back. A door they hadn't checked yet down the far end was swinging slowly open. Some kind of breeze must have opened it. Ralph looked at it. He felt strange. For some reason he felt compelled to have a look inside. He glanced back at Joe. He hadn't heard nor noticed the door opening. What harm could it be for Ralph to disappear just for a second? He'd come back, he knew that. He was just curious. He would just look inside the room, then he'd leave. Ralph flew up to the ajar door and pushed it open.

What he saw inside froze his heart. The room he had just entered was a nursery, though not for any human child. Instead of a cot, there was a plastic cage. Instead of a changing table, potty or closet, there was a perch and a Footlocker. A small toy box half full with plastic bones and other such items sat beside the colourless bars. The light had a protective plastic case around it, and a large mirror was fixed into the far all itself. The room looked more like a kennel then a nursery, yet it gave of the atmosphere of a place a mother would care for her child.

Ralph felt a rush of emotion. He couldn't pinpoint quite what he was feeling or why he felt it, but he knew that whatever it was it was very important to him. His head began to hurt. He could remember something. Something very faint. Like fluttering white smoke he could see it but not touch it. He floated to the centre of the room and spun around slowly on the spot. He looked at every single detail that made up the room, and the more he looked the more his head hurt. It was as if something at the back of his mind was trying to break free. Then he started rummaging around. He looked in the toy box, under the kennel's fur bedsheet, inside the closet. Nothing but toys and small pieces of clothing design for four winged bat creatures resided inside. Then he checked the footlocker. There was no lock attached to it, so opening it was not tough. Ralph looked inside.

The crobat knew who his original owner was. Joe also knew. Before the tow of them originally met Ralph had been one of Giovanni's pokémon, the original boss of Team Rocket. But Ralph had been born after the whole first incident. In fact he'd been born after the second one too. He remembered that. He had no way of telling Joe that the boy was older than he was, even though he didn't look it. But Joe, and all of Joe's friends and family, knew who Ralph's original master had been. But apart from the basic details like where they'd lived and when he'd lifted Giovanni, Ralph couldn't remember anything before he'd run away. He could only remember that he'd hated being pushed around by that brutish man.

So what he was looking at currently was a worrying wake up to reality. Inside of the footlocker was a simple, unframed photograph. In the photograph Ralph could see himself baby in the arms of Giovanni. A man in a scientist's lab coat stood beside him. Ralph was only just big enough to fit in Giovanni's arms, but he seemed to be impossibly young. No crobat on the face of the planet was born a crobat. Crobat's only became Crobats after they'd become a happy golbat. Golbats only became Golbats after reaching a certain age or strength as a Zubat. No member of the Zubat species had ever been born a Crobat. So how was Ralph looking at himself as a baby? While the size was debatable, the facial expressions, the lack of ability to control himself, the crying he could see in the image were not. He was an infant, clear as day. And Giovanni was wearing a terrifyingly smug smile.

Suddenly Ralph's memory imploded. He winced and collapsed to the ground. Images were flooding through his mind. Images and Sounds. He could remember something. No, he could remember everything. The past came back to him like a relentless tsunami. History that he had even forgotten or had been made to forget.

He remembered being much smaller, almost three feet smaller. He remembered feeling scared, unable to move properly, as if his motor skills hadn't been learned properly. He was screaming about something, but not crying. Dog toys were scattered around him. One was in his mouth. It made a squeak every time he bit it. And then someone entered the room, and a person followed behind him. Giovanni, and a scientist. They entered inside, and the scientist picked him up. Ralph struggled, unsure what was going on. The scientist handed him to Giovanni, who smiled down on him with his wicked smile. Ralph could remember him saying something.

"Look at you." He'd said. "A new breakthrough in science itself."

Giovanni had turned to the scientist with him and stated something.

"The first naturally born Crobat!" He'd exclaimed, holding Ralph up. "The first successful clone! The first of many!"

Another scientist walked in, holding a camera.

"You gonna name him, Sir?" The first scientist had asked.

Ralph couldn't tell if Giovanni paused to think or not, but the words from his mouth came like an echo."

"Ralph!" He said in excitement. "Yes! A fitting name for such an important creation!"

Ralph felt his name echo through his mind. He felt its power.

"Ralph!"

Ralph snapped back to reality. He looked up at the doorway. Joe was standing there, looking worriedly at him.

"Ralph, you okay?" He asked.

Ralph didn't answer. He didn't even bother to shrug. His expression portrayed pure horrified amazement.

"What did you find in here?" Joe asked, walking up beside his friend. He picked up the photo and looked at it. "Is that you?" He asked, pointing to the infant crobat.

Ralph nodded, looking ashamed.

Joe looked at the photo, confused.

"But that can't be." Joe said. "You look so young. And you're so small." He turned back to Ralph. Ralph looked just as confused by this as he was. In fact he looked more confused, and more concerned. Joe placed the photo down and put an arm around his crobat friend. "We'll find an answer." Joe told him. "Maybe this is part of the truth this guy wanted to show me."

"Cro." Ralph said, holding his head a little.

"I'm sure there's an answer." Joe told him. "In fact I'm certain of it. I don't really know what this means-" Joe pointed at the picture. "-but we'll certainly figure it out."

There was a sudden rumbling sound downstairs. The walls and floor shook very slightly, just enough to notice. There was the sound of wood creaking, and then a thud and a metallic clunk. A second after it stopped Joe stood up.

"What do you think that was?" He wondered. Ralph shrugged. Joe looked down the corridor. The sound had come from the bottom floor, somewhere just below them. "We should go and look." Joe said. He started to walk out of the room and towards the stairs. Ralph took a few seconds to glance down back at the photo before following.

The sound had come from the library. Joe and Ralph rushed inside only to find that one of the bookcases had been turned sideways. Behind it was a large hole and a flight of stairs heading down.

"A secret passage?" Joe wondered. He hadn't seen anything that suggested the house would need or even want a secret passage, but here it was clear as day. The real question was who or what had opened it.

He looked at Ralph. Ralph looked back.

"Well, we can't just pretend it isn't there." Joe said blatantly. "Let's go have a look down there." He took a step forward. Ralph's wing stopped him.

"Wha…?" Joe turned back to his friend. Ralph look very worried. Actually he looked terrified. Something was worrying him about this place. That photo he'd found had unsettled him. He wanted to leave. But Joe wasn't going to leave. He couldn't, not now he was so close.

"Cro!" Ralph insisted, tugging on his jacket sleeve. "Cro! Crooo!"

Joe shrugged him off. "Ralph, I can't just turn back now." He said sternly. "I know you're scared. I am too. I have no idea what I'll find. I have no idea what I'll learn. But I can't go back now. We've come too far for that. I have to know just why we're here. I may regret it, but I'd rather know then go home curious." He took a step down the steps. "You don't have to come with me." Joe told him. "But I'd rather have my closest friend with me, so that whatever I learn doesn't hurt so badly."

Ralph looked at him pleadingly. But when he looked into Joe's blue eyes and saw honest companionship staring back, he knew he couldn't just abandon him here. He sighed and floated a step forward. Joe smiled.

"Good boy." Joe told him with a smile. "We'll just look down here, see if we can find anything, and then we'll come back up, and then maybe we'll leave." Joe told him as they walked on down the steps.

"Cro." Ralph agreed.

He wasn't as confident as Joe was. He took one longing look back at the way they'd come. And then he followed his friend. The duo disappeared into the darkened passage. A few seconds passed. Then the bookcase slid back into place, and hid the passage away again.

* * *

 **I'd like to apologies if this chapter is a bit crappy. I was originally going to make this chapter much longer, and this part of it was only going to be small. But I got carried away and thought of too much to add, so now the original idea for this chapter will be in the next chapter. Think of it as a two-part chapter. This chapter also came out quicker because I had a rush of ideas, so I wrote it quicker. Again, sorry if it's not so good. Some ideas I had weren't so easy to get across.**

 **Hopefully none of this was a problem, and chapter 6 will be up soon enough.**


	6. Chapter 6: The Truth

Darkness enshrouded. The passageway wasn't long, just pitch black. Vision was obscured by the lack of a light source. Joe had to use his hands to feel his way ahead. He touched the wet brick walls.

Joe wasn't sure where the passageway went, or what was at the end of it, but people didn't build passageways for no reason. There must be something important ahead. From the direction they were heading Joe could only assume they were entering some kind of basement, or possibly a bunker. It wasn't too far below the house either. The steps had only gone down a few metres. By this point they must almost be there, wherever there was.

Ralph stayed close to Joe. He could see fine in the dark, but that wasn't why he was worried. He didn't like the idea of being trapped underground, not knowing what was just ahead of them. He had heard the bookcase close up behind them. Joe had heard it to, but he seemed to be ignoring it. The boy seemed worryingly determined to press on, unwary of what dangers could lurk behind the next corner. Ralph had definitely seen someone in this house. And if evidence of his past was lying around, it was likely that that person was more malicious then most could ever dream of being. Ralph had his guard up the whole journey down, just in case things weren't as safe as they seemed. If this place had once belonged to Giovanni then it was possible that they were likely to find something they didn't want to see.

Such words could not be truer, as Joe and Ralph didn't have half a clue on what they were about to discover.

The duo reached the end of the passage, a solid stone wall.

"A dead end?" Joe said, puzzled. "No. There can't just be a dead end. Why would there even be a passageway if it just led to a dead end?"

Ralph squeezed past him and pressed a wing against the stone. Surprisingly it crumpled under the pressure of his slight tap. He then gave Joe a monotonous stare, as if to suggest that he was a presumptuous idiot. The right edge of the wall folded in, revealing light on the other side.

"Paper?" Joe muttered, sounding even more confused. He gripped the loose edge and pulled it downwards. The paper wall ripped and light blasted the two of them. Behind it was a room. Joe looked a little embarrassed. "It looked more real in the dark." He said.

Ralph nodded, still giving him the same expression.

Joe glared back at him. "Stop it." He said. They stepped out of the tunnel and into the room.

Joe hadn't noticed at first glance, but now he was inside the room itself he could see exactly what had been waiting for him. The two of them were standing at the edge of some kind of science lab, except that the lab was barely empty. There were several strange large cylinders to the left and right wall, but what they were for couldn't be determined at this point. There were about six of them in total, all the same size and colour. The only determinable differences were the small black numbers on them. Joe read them in turn. _'#14 - Grim, #17 – Surge, #19 - Banshee, #23 - Nemesis, #27 - Colossus, #41 - Hydra'_. He couldn't work out what they meant. They seemed almost like names, but names for what? Projects? Experiments? Joe wasn't too eager to find out just yet.

He looked around the room. There weren't many other things. There was a small terminal next to each cylinder which seemed to read various data, mostly in more numbers. And there was a desk at the furthest end of the room, sat correspondingly with the entrance. It was an eye-catcher for anyone walking in. Joe had of course seen it first. It was just a simple metal desk, not much more save for the various papers scattered across it.

As they walked further into the room Joe spotted a few filing cabinets and storage boxes tucked away into the far corners. They didn't seem important. Most of them were dented and old. Still, if he couldn't find anything he'd probably search through them.

Joe was beginning to feel like an adventurous explored. He had taken a slightly dangerous journey to get here, and this was his reward, his temple of gold. Frankly he was slightly disappointed.

"There doesn't seem to be much exciting down here." He said, examining one of the cylinders. "I don't know what you think, Ralph?"

Ralph shrugged. He was just a large bat. He didn't know anything about science. He didn't know what stuff down here was important. But the cylinders had his interest. He felt he'd seen them before. A slight itch at the back of his head told him that he should know what they are, but he just couldn't pinpoint the information. Either he didn't have it or it was long buried in the vast pits of memory.

Joe turned his focus to the desk. He began looking through the papers piled upon them. They all seemed to be covered in scrawling text, mostly numbers, data and facts. A few doodles on some pages, mostly of strange machinery that Joe couldn't understand.

And then he found something else. Under all the paper was a small hardbound book. The cover and back were made of black leather and looked brand new, yet the pages looked tattered, crumpled and slightly ripped. Many had turned edges where someone had left their space.

Curious, Joe picked the book up and opened it. The first thing he saw was a date. **_'April 6th 1992'_**

"A diary?" Joe realised. He flicked his eyes down the page. Whoever the writer was had scrawled down a very simple description of their day in jointed, curly writing. It wasn't neat. Half the letters were either too small to read or too joint to another letter to tell the difference between. Evidently the owner was a quick writer who quite possibly had a few struggles with dyslexia. Some words were spelt completely wrong. Engineer has three E's in it.

Ralph, who had spotted the diary for himself now, floated over and joined Joe in reading the pages. He quickly realised however that he could not make out the writing.

"Cro?" He asked.

"I'll read out the interesting bits." Joe told him.

"Cro." Ralph said gratefully.

Joe finished the page. It hadn't said much interesting. It just talked about arrival at the mansion, and plans to build a lab underground. Evidently the writer was some kind of scientist that had worked here. Nothing about what the lab was for, or what was going on here. Joe flipped through a few more pages. Most of them for a while were the same thing. Talking about putting the lab together, planning their projects, complaining about a few aggressive or obnoxious co-workers. The original writer seemed to have a rather ungrateful, almost unimpressed personality. Joe noticed that they never wrote 'dear diary'. They just put the date and jumped into the story, as if it wasn't so much formal as it was factual. There was also no mention of the owner's name. It wasn't written anywhere is the book.

Joe continued to skip through the pages, until finally he came across one that caught his attention.

 ** _'April 6th 1992_**

 ** _Finally we can start work. The boss has had the equipment installed, and this time properly. Now we can get on with our experiment. No one has successfully cloned a living pokémon before. We might be the first.'_**

"Pokemon cloning." Joe murmured. It was well know currently that certain prehistoric pokémon could be revived from fossils found in mountains, caves and other such locations. But that had been a more recent discovery, within the last two years or so. This was a couple of years before that breakthrough, and it was with live pokémon DNA. Apparently there was a difference. Fossils didn't tent to fight back, for example. But beyond that fossil DNA could be stored and grown quickly with the right equipment, and the end result would always come out as a fully grown, perfect pokémon. But no one had really tried clowning a live pokémon before. It wasn't as easy as it sounded, and the book went on to confirm that.

Joe flipped a few days forward.

 ** _'April 11th 1992_**

 ** _We now have the DNA from a few various subject pokémon, one of which is the boss's beloved pet. Tests have just begun. We'll see tomorrow if they worked._**

 ** _April 12th 1992_**

 ** _Failure! Complete and utter failure. The subjects didn't even grow. I was certain that we had the right chemicals. I should fire the idiot that created that formula. Some growth agent. Perhaps different DNA is needed to make this work. Will continue testing tomorrow.'_**

April 13th and 14th had been ripped out of the book. Joe flicked on a bit further ahead.

 ** _'April 28th 1992_**

 ** _Finally we've been able to create the right agent to make the clones grow. It will take time, but we'll get there eventually. However other snags have come through. We've found that most of the pokémon we have accessible to us don't have "the best" DNA to make proper clones from. The process needs a pedigree to work this early on. The boss has insisted that we use his precious pet as the basis. I hate having to take DNA from that thing!'_**

"Sounds like a lot was going on here." Joe muttered, his eyes never leaving the pages. "But why were they cloning pokémon?"

Joe continued to read on. He was curious as to what was going on, and who this boss was that the writer kept mentioning. He skipped through more pages until again he spotter a more interesting entry.

 ** _'May 17th 1992_**

 ** _Some progress at least. We've been able to get the clones to grow, albeit not very much. There's some sign of life in there. Most of it is sludge, but we're getting signs of brain electricity from some of them. Life maybe? So far we've created a couple of retarded ditto. That wasn't what we were trying to do. Further experiments will be needed._**

 ** _May 20th 1992_**

 ** _All tests so far have resulted in failure. All subjects have died within the last three days. Evidently we are doing something wrong. Maybe a stronger chemical agent, or a larger dose of purer DNA is needed. We can't be far away from a breakthrough._**

 ** _May 31st 1992_**

 ** _The boss has agreed to expand our budget. Half of the team is out currently buying better equipment, while the other half is trying to install it. Who knows if these growth chambers will even work? But I guess it's worth a try.'_**

"Growth chambers." Joe repeated. He looked up and turned to focus on the cylinders around him. "Is that what these things are?" He wondered. Growing evermore curious, Joe continued to read on. He skipped through the pages until finally he found the next important page.

 ** _'October 13th 1992_**

 ** _Finally we have results! The growth chambers have worked for us after all. One of the subject has grown to full form, although bringing with it various imperfections. It has been dubbed Subject #1, the first successful clone we have been able to form. Now we just need to perfect the process._**

 ** _November 2nd 1992_**

 ** _The experiments have continued to prove fruitful. This time two subjects survived to full maturity, this time carrying less imperfections. It will take more time to completely remove these faults, but it appears the more DNA we use, and the stronger agents we use, the better the results. However the subjects that haven't survived have proved dramatically worse than before. Some were abominations from the beginning. Others couldn't cope with their own bodies. We're resorted to burning the failures, simply to keep space.'_**

Joe continued to skip further and further. The writer spoke more about the experiments, about the subjects that survived, and the subjects that failed. As the dates flicked through his eyes the past of this place became more vivid, and more horrifying. Finally he reached the final entry in the book.

 ** _'February 19th 1997'_**

 ** _It has happened! Our experiment has finally proved a success, after so long. Just when I was losing hope, after all the budget cuts, I found the answer to our question. I have created life! I have created a perfect clone! I told the others that they were giving up too early! They laughed when I said that it can still be done. They gave up on our work, but I never stopped, and look what I've discovered! Giovanni was most please._**

 ** _Subject #13 is a flawless clone of a fully grown male Crobat. It's perfect in every way. Not one imperfection is present on its body, and as of now its mental health seems sound too. It turned out the biggest fault we had was we were trying to clone these pokémon as fully grown pokémon. The cure was simply inducing a childlike state upon birth, the same as a naturally hatched pokémon. This results is a pokémon half its normal size, yet completely capable of growing to look exactly like a natural creature._**

 ** _At this current point Subject #13 is a day old, and is under the care of our boss. Giovanni is certainly a happy man. It looks just like his pet, except is smaller and doesn't carry the same scars. The boss has named him, which I think is a pointless thing to do. We'll just put it up to study and combat when it's fully grown. That may take a few months still._**

 ** _I can't stop thinking of what could come of this. The power we could create through this method. The pokémon we could grow! Through cloning we could create undefeatable pokémon. We could fulfil Team Rocket's dream! Now I just need to learn how to unlock such power. And I imagine that Subject #13 will help us greatly… so long as the boss lets me experiment further.'_**

Joe placed the book down.

"Ralph…" He muttered, breathless. "I think… I think we found something massive!" He said.

Ralph didn't respond.

Joe couldn't believe what he'd just read. Pokemon experiments. Team Rocket. Cloning a fully grown Crobat! Skipping the evolution process! This was a breakthrough, but in the worst way possible. Such cruelty had been performed in this experiment. Science could be horrible, but the things this person had done to make a breakthrough that would inevitably be used for evil.

"We should take this back." Joe realised. "Professor Oak needs to read it. He needs to be told about this."

There was still no response from his companion.

"Ralph?" Joe asked, after a few seconds of silence.

He glanced to his left. Ralph was still there, but he was no longer looking at the book. He was looking behind them. Joe turned around.

A man was standing at the entrance. He was wearing a tattered white lab coat, but it didn't suit him. He had a much more sinister look then any casual scientist could pull off. This man could probably wear a leather jacket and chains and pull it off. He was skinny, almost skeleton-like, the lab coat hanging loosely off his body like paper cloth. He looked to be almost in his forties. He had an unnerving smile on his face.

Upon being noticed he took a step forward. Ralph was certain he recognised the man. Joe on the other hand had never seen him before.

"I see you found your own way down here, all by yourself." The man said. "When they said you were courageous I wasn't sure to believe it, but I didn't expect you to be smart too. And quick! I was expecting to wait another couple of days for you. Yet here you are, standing before me finally. And you brought your Crobat friend too." He chuckled. "I am impressed, Mr Glende."

Joe looked the man up and down, giving him a cautious stare.

"You know my name?" He asked firstly.

"I did send you a letter." The man told him.

That answered two of Joe's questions.

"Why did you bring me here?" Joe asked.

"I didn't." The man told him simply. Joe looked confused for a second, until the man continued. "I pointed you in the direction. You made your way here. I sent you the letter. I pointed you to the red path. You were the one who found it. You were the one who followed it. You were the one who decided to come to this old house. You found this laboratory, and the nursery upstairs I noticed. You brought yourself here. I merely gave you a hint."

"How do you…?"

"Really, you're going to ask me how I knew you were in the nursery." The man cut Joe off. "You're a smart kid. Think of the answer yourself."

Joe was a little flustered. So many things had just been said. He was unsure what to say, or even do next.

"So, who am I here?" Joe asked. "You brought me all this way. Why?"

The man smiled a little nicer at him. He still had the sinister air about him however.

"I don't believe I have been completely courteous with you." He said, changing the subject. "You don't know my name yet. So how about we make a small exchange. You are Joseph Glende from Suroway Farm, Pallet Town?" The man asked.

"I am." Joe said.

"Then it is my turn to announce myself." The man told him, taking a small bow. "My name is Landon Labelle."

Joe gave a small gasp.

"You are Landon Labelle?" He repeated.

"You know that name?" The man asked. Then he chuckled. "Of course you do. Your uncle told you that story about his past with Team Rocket, didn't he?" He shook his head. "What lies did he tell you?"

"He told me that you and he were part of a group that took down Team Rocket the first time they formed." Joe explained. "He also told me about the equipment you created, and about how you just disappeared one day. He told me that you'd probably been taken by Team Rocket."

Landon suddenly began to laugh. Joe was very confused by this, and very perturbed. Was something he said funny? Ralph continued to stare at the man, almost unblinkingly. Landon stifled his laughter and spoke once again.

"Is that what he told you?" He said, grinning madly. "Well, he's got two out of three right at least. Those first things were true. I was part of his little group and I did make equipment for them. But I was never kidnapped by Team Rocket."

"So what did happen then?" Joe asked.

Landon reached a hand to his coat. "Boy, surely you know, a kidnapping is when someone is taken by force against their will." Landon gripped the lapel of his lab coat. "I never went anywhere against my will. I just went home."

He pulled the lab coat back, revealing a black shirt underneath. On the shirt, on the right side of his chest, was a red R with a black outline.

"Team Rocket." Joe realised. "You were with Team Rocket that whole time?"

Landon let go of his lab coat and nodded to the boy's question.

"Yes." He said simply. "I was a spy, of sorts. A better word would be scout. A sleeper agent, yet I was fully awake and aware of what I was doing. My job was to act like a normal citizen and keep an eye on what was going in my allocated town. If anything interesting popped up I was to inform Giovanni or another high-up and let them know of it. And in the case of your uncle it was such a big thing that I was instructed to accompany them for a while, at least till I could fully understand what they were doing and find a way to put an end to it. My only mistake was that I didn't stop them well enough. I left my research behind, like a fool. But I assure you I was a younger man. I have aged since then."

Joe was astounded by what he was being told.

"So you betrayed them?" Joe asked. "You pretended to be a victim so that my uncle would believe you and ask you to help them, and you agreed so that you could destroy them from the inside. You pretended to be their friend, just so you could hurt them."

"Did you uncle tell you that?" Landon asked with a smug smile. "I think that might be wishful thinking. We were never friends. He never liked me, and to be honest I never liked him. I didn't even try to hide it. To be honest, I think he knew my true nature all that time. He just pretended not to know. It's the only explanation I have as to how he managed to save the others. They were all supposed to die, but somehow he saved them. He had to know who I really was in order to get there in time."

Joe realised that Landon clearly didn't know about his uncle's visions. If he did he would've know they warned him of the danger. He considered telling him, but what would that do to aid him. He didn't even know the man's true reason for bringing him here. He was part of Team Rocket, from when they started off. He couldn't be up to anything good.

"So that's the truth you wanted to tell me?" Joe asked.

Landon chuckled again.

"Oh no." He said with a smile. "No, that is not the truth I wanted to tell you." His eyes glanced to Ralph for a split second, and then turned back to Joe. "No, the truth I wanted to tell you was about your friend here. About Ralph."

"How do you know his name?" Joe asked.

"He's Giovanni's pet!" Landon snapped suddenly. "Of course I know my own boss's pokémon!"

Joe waved a finger. "Hang on." He interrupted. "Giovanni isn't your boss anymore. He abandoned Team Rocket years ago. Archer's your new boss, and he's dead. I defeated him."

"As you did." Landon admitted. "You are right in saying that Archer did take over after Giovanni abandoned us, but just because a new monarch is in charge doesn't mean you aren't faithful to the past monarch." He pointed around the room. "All this work I have done here, all of it was under Giovanni's instructions. Archer didn't even have a clue about what we were doing."

"And what you were doing was creating pokémon clones?" Joe said.

"You read my diary. You know that answer." Landon told him.

Joe had figured the diary belonged to him. It seemed fitting. He had the same manner of speaking, and thinking.

"So why?" Joe asked.

Landon smiled, reminiscing the work he had done in the past.

"We did it at first to simply prove it could be done." He explained. A fare enough reason. Some pokémon are rare and don't breed easily. Cloning could help keep their species going. But that's a very pacifist excuse for doing it. I wanted to go further. I wanted to use cloning to create a pokémon that would be stronger than any other. A new breed of pokémon. An extremely powerful breed of pokémon that would be better than any pokémon anyone had used before." Joe was giving him a disgusted stare. "I can see you disagree with me."

Joe nodded. "What you were doing was awful." He told him. "Tampering with nature to create something better then it's supposed to be. The amount of subject you burned just to find the best you could make. Just to make a pokémon that was stronger then it's supposed to be."

"All of that was to make a breakthrough in science as we know it." Landon reminded him. "What is a few lives that would never survive compared to creating a being that could protect itself better than its natural brothers? The results outweigh the process."

"Not when the results will be used to hurt others." Joe said. "That's why you made the breakthrough in the first place. You wanted stronger pokémon, so Team Rocket can make a return yet again and this time win."

Landon didn't answer him. Instead he just smiled.

"You're a smart kid." He said. "Though highly contradictory. You slag on enhanced pokémon, when your current companion was the original."

Joe turned slowly to Ralph. His crobat friend met his eyes with a sad stare.

"What?" Joe asked quietly.

"You really didn't figure that out?" Landon asked. "Come on, boy. You read my diary. Did that last entry not set any alarm bells off?" Then he shrugged. "Guess you aren't so clever after all."

Ralph looked ashamed of himself. Joe didn't know how to respond to this news. There wasn't much he could say to defend his friends. He knew that Giovanni had once owned Ralph, but nothing about his friend had ever struck his as different, or unusual. Then again he didn't know many other crobats.

"So go on then." Joe said, suddenly looking sternly towards Landon Labelle. "You brought me here to tell me the truth. So tell it to me. All of it."

Landon smiled. He was eager to retell all of the past to this young adventurer.

"You may want to pull up a chair." Landon told him. "Because this is going to be a long story."

Joe grabbed the chair from the desk, pulled it around and sat down on it. Landon perched himself on a small but sturdy metal box and began to repeat his knowledge.

"Where would you like to start?" He asked.

"From the beginning." Joe said, folding his arms into his jacket. "Tell me how all this came to happen."

Landon smiled. "It's interesting to note how many famous events begin with one tiny decision, and a small event that follows." He said. "That tiny event can snowball down until it reaches an impossible size and becomes a cataclysm." He paused for thought. "This whole experiment started because of one simple wish: to create pokémon that would be stronger than any other. It was a dream Giovanni, my ex-boss, had carried for years, well before Team Rocket were even conceived. It was probably innocent enough at the start. But there's only so many pokémon you can raise before you realise there's always a limit to power. That was when he turned to science, and I was brought in once more. About six years ago, sometime after Team Rocket were defeated yet again, Giovanni called me up and asked me for his help. He got me building all this. He gave me a crew, who sadly weren't as determined as I was. He wanted to unlock more power through pokémon, but the only way he could do that was through recreating them ourselves. The struggle came, as you know, from figuring out exactly how we did that. But once we did, unlocking that power was easy. But by that point Giovanni had given up on our project. Once the original was made, he decided to abandon this place and shut down the whole operation. I begged him to let me continue. We were so close. But he was done with his criminal ways. He wasn't interested in taking over the world anymore. Instead he wanted to just disappear, and be forgotten." Landon spat in disgust. "He turned out to be a coward this whole time. The man who had run a group of criminals was nothing more than a deserter"

"Where is this going?" Joe asked, impatiently. Landon glared at him.

"All in due time." He said sharply. "Like I said, my boss was a coward. But I was not. I kept going, even when he left, taking Subject #13 with him." He glanced at Ralph. "And, of course, you know his story."

Joe turned to Ralph. The two of them shared the same expression.

"But I never gave up." Landon continued. "And because I never gave up I achieved what Giovanni could not. I created more successes. More pokémon, more powerful than the originals. And they were all for me. They would never be treated as pets by that coward Giovanni, or misused by Archer and his uncouth henchmen. I'm no trainer, but I don't have to be. They can take care of themselves."

"So where are these successes now?" Joe asked.

Landon just smiled at him. "I have a feeling you'll meet one of them… at some point maybe."

The room grew slowly quieter. There seemed to be a strange feeling of unseen eyes watching the meeting. Joe did his best to ignore it. Landon's smile never left his face.

"So what else is there?" Joe asked. "You told me about what you were doing here, what Giovanni had planned. You told me the truth about yourself. Now tell me everything else you know."

Landon chuckled. "Funny, you're demanding me to talk when you're the one in my house." He said simply. Then he shrugged. "But you are right. There is more I know." Landon folded his legs and straightened his back as he prepared to tell the boy more about the past. "I assume you know that your father was in Team Rocket?"

"Yes." Joe said. "And my mother too."

"Oh yes. Greenie. I remember her." Landon said. "She and your father were both around during Team Rocket's beginning. I knew your father because I knew your uncle. If he hadn't told me that he had a brother still with Team Rocket I would never have known about him, thus never learning about you. They were idiots to have a child at such a young age." He caught Joe's angry expression. "Yet, it seems that turned out to be a positive." He added, showing of a very fake smile. "I imagine you think your parents are great people, don't you, Mr Glende?"

"No." Joe said simply. "They weren't great people. My father was a commander under Archer's rule. He tried to kill me several times. But when he realised who I was he changed sides. I started trying to help me stop Team Rocket. He even died doing so. He was not a great person, but he was better than you."

"That's a very uneducated view of someone." Landon told him. "You don't even know half the monstrosities he committed in the name of Team Rocket.

"No more then you've done." Joe argued.

"On the contrary." Landon said. "I've never killed anyone. There's no blood on my hands."

"What about all those 'experiments' you burned because they were imperfect. And how many other pokémon did you kill to get that far?"

"All for the greater good." Landon said. "And I did a kindness to those creatures by killing them. Would you rather they live a long, painful life as imperfect creations?"

Joe couldn't retort to that comment. Landon had cornered him verbally.

"You glorify your father as some kind of hero just because he changed sides at the end, but does that remove all the sins he committed before. The past doesn't go away, no matter how hard you may try to get rid of it. Think about it. If he really cared about you he could have stayed and raised you. But he didn't, did he?" He smiled. "And your mother wasn't much better. She did the same things. The only difference is she got out much quicker than your father did. Being pregnant seemed to make that possible. But the same question still occurred. She could have taken care of you, but she didn't. What excuse did she try and make to you when you finally found her?"

Joe was quiet, unable to respond to the man. Landon smiled.

"You see?" He said. "Some heroes your parents were. Two criminals unable to be together yet too arrogant to stay apart, forced to give away the child they had together in order to save their own hides."

"They didn't want me growing up in that environment." Joe told him. "They didn't want me to end up like them, criminals. They wanted me to better than that."

"So they gave you to your uncle." Landon finished. "And that was better? You swapped a thief for a liar." Landon narrowed his eyes. "How many times has that man forgotten to tell you things? How many little bits of information did he forget to bring up until it was already too late?"

Joe bit his lip. "I'm sure he had his reasons." He said. "He didn't want to tell me about his past because he regretted it."

"But what about the other things." Landon asked. "He never told you about his involvement with Team Rocket until you were already fighting them."

"He didn't want me to get involved with them." Joe argued. "I made the choice myself to confront them before then. He didn't feel that he had to tell me. He thought it'd keep me safe."

"Your uncle was Walker Glende!" Landon snapped. "You were never going to be safe while he was around!"

Silence fell one again. Landon wiped his forehead, angry sweat sliding down his brow. He sighed and calmed down.

"Do you see?" He asked. "These people who you think are so great are nothing more than thieves and liars." He unfolded his arms. "And those who you assume evil have more to them then you'd ever bother to see." He stated sharply.

"What are you talking about?" Joe asked.

"You don't honestly think that Archer, the villain in this story, became who he was by choice?" Landon said. "People don't become monsters by choice. Yet you probably never thought of that, did you?"

"Archer wanted to awaken a titan and destroy half the world." Joe argued.

Landon stood up. "Archer was nothing more than a visionary!" He snapped. "Bring civilization to its knees and start again under a new ruler? That's what humanity needs. Look at the crime and filth in the world. Starting again could've stopped all that!"

"So killing millions of people and pokémon and throwing the rest into slavery is a good idea to you?" Joe asked, shouting.

Landon suddenly smiled. "No." He said calmly, taking Joe by surprise. "No. It wasn't a good plan. But that's how Archer saw it. And that's how his followers saw it, the dedicated ones at least. Team Rocket was practically a cult by the end."

Joe looked very confused now. "So why did you say that?" He asked.

"Because I wanted you to understand why that man was that way." Landon explained. "Like I said, no one becomes a monster by choice. Things in their past make them that way. Having no one to turn to, no one to raise you properly. It can ruin a person so severely that they have no choice but to become a monster." Landon sat forwards. "What were Archer's last words?" He asked.

Joe thought back to his final confrontation with Team Rocket's last boss.

"He said 'only one of us leaves alive today. And I know it won't be me… but it won't be you either.' Those were his lasts words." Joe said.

"And he said something else." Landon said. "Before that. He spoke about his mother, didn't he? About what the world did to her, and to him."

Joe thought back again. Archer had mentioned something like that, but Joe could only assume.

"He might have." Joe said.

Landon nodded sadly. "You don't know about her, do you?" He asked. Joe shook his head. "Archer's mother died when he was twelve." Landon explained. "She contracted an early form of Alzheimer's. Rare, but not unheard of. He had to grow up with her slowly losing her memory, not knowing what to do or how to help her. She even forgot who her own son was. Imagine what something like that can do to a child. You wake up one day only to find that your mother has forgotten who you even are. And he reacted the only way a young child knows how. He got angry. He demanded that the doctors help her, but they couldn't do anything. But a child couldn't understand that. Because of that he became the person you know him as. Someone who would make the changes others can't. Someone who would fix the world, because no one would help the people he loved. He never understood that sometimes there's nothing you can do. But grief can make people go mad."

There was more silence for a while.

"Do you understand now?" Landon asked. "Do you see how Archer became the monster you know him as?"

Joe nodded. "I can." He said. Then he spoke again. "But that doesn't change what he did. He still did bad things, and he did them by choice. He could have just learned to accept his pain, like I had to do. But instead he chose to hurt others. I'm sorry that he lost so much, but that doesn't change what he did."

Landon nodded in agreement.

"No." He said. "It doesn't. But the truth makes you see just how complicated life can be. Villains aren't just villainous for no reason. We all have a story behind who we are."

Landon stood up.

"And I believe that's all I have to tell you." Landon said. "I told you truth… all of it."

Joe stood up too.

"So I can leave?" He asked.

"Leave?" Landon repeated. He was silent for a few seconds, then he said "No."

Joe looked a little concerned. "No?" He asked.

"You aren't leaving just yet." Landon told him. "There's one last thing I want you to stay for."

Joe was starting to grow rather worried. He stood up and grabbed his bag.

"It's getting late." He said quickly. "I should get back before it gets dark."

"I assure you there's nothing to worry about." Landon told him. "I simple want to test your friend here.

Ralph suddenly looked incredibly frightened. He'd been watching the whole conversation take place, unable to add anything to it for the lack of English speaking ability. Now he was being confronted and 'tested.' He had every right to be concerned by this. He looked at Joe pleadingly.

"Why do you want to test Ralph?" Joe asked.

"He's my original success." Landon explained. "My Subject 13. I want to see just how powerful he's become." Landon punch one fist hand into his other open hand. "I want to battle him."

"With what pokémon?" Joe asked, growing evermore worried.

Landon gave him a very concerning smile.

"I did tell you that I'd kept my subjects." Landon explained. "At least I kept the best of them." He stepped over to one of the cylinders sitting at the side of the room. "It's time you met them all." He said.

He pressed the screen. A second later there was a powerful metallic hiss. Something underground began to clank and clatter. Joe looked down as a rumble began. Machinery kicked into work. And around the room the six massive metal cylinders began to move. One by one they slid down into the floor, the metal exterior shell disappearing into the ground. And where the cylinders had been were now six tall glass chambered, filled with green liquid. Wired up inside were six pokémon, all of a different species. The floated inside the liquid tanks, asleep.

"Alright boys." Landon said, his finger hovering over a button. "It's time to wake up."

He pressed the button. Suddenly there was a loud, rumbling, gurgling sound. The green liquid began to drain out of the tanks through the pipes inside. And then the wires attached to the pokémon broke away, falling limpet the back of the tank. There was a second of quiet. Then six pairs of eyes snapped open sharply. Joe gasped in surprise. The six pokémon were awake and alive. A loud chorus of groans and growls echoed through the glass. They sounded angry, almost hungrily so. They wanted out.

The glass trapping them inside shattered, freeing the imprisoned pokémon. And once they were out, the rushed to Landon. The man stood unafraid as they charged towards him. Joe was certain they would rip him apart, but that never happened. Instead the six beasts stood beside him, glaring at Joe and Ralph with furious, anger filled eyes.

Beside Landon stood six powerful looking pokémon. A Gengar, a Machamp, a Gyarados, an Electabuzz, a Scizor, and finally, perched on Landon's outstretched arm, was a Crobat.

Landon threw his lab coat of and folded his arms across his shirt. The crobat took to flying beside him.

"Meet my team." He said proudly. "The strongest pokémon science has ever made." He pointed to each of them in terms of appearance. "Subject #41 – Hydra. Subject #27 – Colossus. Subject #23 – Nemesis. Subject #19 – Banshee. Subject #17 – Surge… " His finger pointed finally at the crobat beside him. "And Subject #14 – Grim." He finished.

Joe looked very worried now. He considered making a run for the exit, but these new pokémon were standing right in the doorway. The only choice he and Ralph had was to fight, at least long enough to find a way to escape. But the stare Landon was giving him showed no remorse behind it. The man seemed eager to fight. Not only that, he seemed eager to win.

"So, you want fight… in here?" Joe asked nervously.

Landon nodded. "This room is big enough for a gyarados, so it's big enough for the rest of them." He stated simply. "I hope you and your friend are ready to deal with this, because believe me I will not hold back."

"But, I thought you weren't a pokémon trainer." Joe argued.

"I'm not." Landon agreed. "But I don't have to be. They will do the fighting for themselves. They know their moves, and how to use them effectively." He smiled. "I told you that I had created pokémon more powerful than others." He said proudly.

Joe and Ralph gave each other a solemn look. There was no way of getting out of this. They'd have to fight.

"Alright." Joe muttered. "So when do we start?"

Landon smiled and folded his arms. "Right now." He said.

And the Gengar lunged.


	7. Chapter 7: A Final Test

Ralph had barely been aware of what was happening. He'd been lost in thought, thinking about everything that Landon and Joe had said, even fact that the scientist had spilled to them. His memory was coming back. He'd thought for so long that he was like any other crobat. Reared from a zubat, evolved to a golbat and then beloved into a crobat. But all he really was was an experiment. A freak. A subject made in Landon's lab. But while that fact was distressing, it also made sense of certain things. He could remember barely anything before he met Joe. All he remembered was Giovanni, and a recollection escaping him because of the way he was treated. But now he understood it all. He knew the truth. He didn't remember his past because it didn't exist. He was only a few months old when he met Joe. He couldn't remember his past because it didn't exist. There was only before he met Joe, when he met Joe, and after he met Joe. There was nothing else. He remembered Giovanni, and the way he'd treated him. He'd been treated like a tool, not to harm but to work. But after all this Ralph was starting to wonder whether he'd done that on purpose. Had Giovanni wanted him to escape? Had he wanted him to run into some like Joe?

All of this was so confusing, especially for a crobat who wasn't as sentient as a human and had only so much understand of what went on around him. But he had enough sentience to understand what he was, who he was. He was Ralph. He was real. And he could affect things. He had the ability to change the outcome of events, and he understood this. So when he realised that a four foot tall cackling Gengar was lunging towards his trainer, he knew that reaction quickly would change the outcome.

Ralph threw himself in front of Joe and held his wings up in a cross. Banshee didn't even falter. It continued its trajectory forwards, ghostly fist extended to strike. And then it stopped, an inch away from Ralph's defended face. It stared at him with piercing eyes, wielding a massive grin and levitating at eye level with the crobat. Then it floated backwards a few feet, landed and cackled.

Landon himself began to laugh with the spectral creature.

"He has quick reactions." He said with a smile. "That's a good sign. This should be fun."

Joe glanced around Ralph's wing. He had dropped into a defensive ball when he saw the pokémon charging, as his natural defence instincts kicked in. Normally he wouldn't have done so, but Banshee's attack was so quick that it startled him, and unthinking he resorted to it.

Ralph stared down the ghost. Banshee just smiled back.

"Ralph, get ready." Joe whispered. "This might be a long fight."

Landon clicked a finger.

"Banshee!" He instructed. "Test them!"

Banshee began to cackle insanely, its flicking tongue flailing out of its mouth. Ralph held steady, prepared to be attacked at any second. But instead of making another lung, Banshee simply stood its ground. The air around it seemed to grow a little misty. And then suddenly there were three of them. Then five of them. Then seven. Then nine. Ralph's eyes widened slowly as the room slowly filled with Banshees. Simultaneously each Gengar cackled at once, creating a horrifying echo.

"A little game of find the real ghost may be a good idea." Landon suggested. "What next, hero?"

Joe stared at the massive cluster of ghosts before him. Each one looked as real as the one next to it. The problem was he couldn't just try and attack the one that had started the circle. It was highly likely that the real Banshee had switched positions by now.

"Ralph, go high up." Joe instructed. Ralph looked back with concern. "They won't attack me." Joe told him. "They're after you. The test is to see how strong you are. You need to keep an eye out and attack at the right time, okay?" Ralph nodded. He understood his trainer's instructions, but it would be tough to follow them in the midst of battle.

"Cro." Ralph said firmly. He abandoned his friend and took off upwards until he reached the roof. All sixteen of the fat, purple ghosts watched as he flew above them, circling overhead. Ralph tried to pick out any slight differences, any signs of uniqueness, anything that didn't add up and pointed towards which one was the real one. He could just attack them all, but that would take time and leave him vulnerable. The real one could attack him and disappear again behind more illusions if he did that. So he waited to see if there'd be any differences.

All sixteen Gengars watched back. Then all sixteen pressed their hands together and formed a massive ghostly ball. Ralph realised what they were about to do. He got ready to manoeuvre as sixteen Gengars threw sixteen shadow balls up into the air. The watching pokémon cheered their friend on as Banshee and his many illusionary copies threw their attacks up at the crobat.

Ralph did his best to dodge each and every attack as they came barraging up at him. He wouldn't take any chances. Most of them wouldn't be real attacks, but he couldn't tell which. In order to play safe he decided that dodging them all was for the best. The illusionary shadow balls burst against the roof into a shower of deep black energy droplets. But while Ralph was dodging these fake attacks he failed to notice one Gengar suddenly jump several feet into the air, form a shadow ball in one hand, and hurl it at him like a basketball. The attack struck him head on, sending him spiralling backwards several feet. When he recovered he noticed that all the real Banshee had vanished once more into its illusions.

Ralph growled in anger. This was a dirty trick to play. In fact it was barely fare. His opponents was just hiding behind its illusions, relying on him missing in order to do its miniscule damage. The shadow ball hardly did anything. It simply stung a bit. But it had force, and it had knocked his concentration. That was what Banshee wanted. It wanted him to lose sight of it, so it could hide. It wanted Ralph to feel rushed, to get lost, to loose attention to the dancing copies bellow. But Ralph wasn't stupid. He knew this kind of technique, and he knew how to combat it.

Ralph dived. The sixteen Gengar turned, grins on their faces, as he sped towards them, wings outstretched. One by one Ralph cut through the ghosts in a solid line, slicing the illusions in half. He swooped upwards again. He had destroyed four of them. Only twelve were left to finish off. But he didn't attack again. He knew what Banshee would do next. All he had to do was watch and wait.

And sure enough Banshee did exactly what Ralph was expecting. There was a flash, and suddenly another four illusions appeared where the originals had been, making Ralph's attack pointless. But Ralph had been watching. He'd seen exactly what happened. In replacing its illusions, Banshee had given itself away. The real one was standing beside the right wall, the closest to the entrance. Ralph grinned. He knew which one was the real one now.

He dived once more. The sixteen Gengars readied shadow balls again, but Ralph didn't worry. He knew which ones weren't real. The real Banshee was also readying a shadow ball attack, but Ralph was prepared for that. The ghosts threw their attacks. Fifteen shadow balls passed through Ralph's body harmlessly and faded away. The real one flew straight towards his face like a purple-black cannonball. But Ralph didn't panic. He simply rotated in the air and flew around the attack, spiralling in a coil of purple. And then he made his own attack.

A solid purple wing struck Banshee between the teeth. The ghost was flung against the wall by the force of the strike. It made an impact, and disappeared through the brick. It reappeared a few seconds later, its eyes glowing yellow and its expression showing hits of anger through its plastered grin.

"Nicely done." Landon said approvingly. "He's smart. But we'll just see if he's smart enough."

At those words the Gengar began to attack again. Except this time all it did was point a hand outwards, one tiny finger pointing straight at Ralph. Then from the tip burst forth a flurry of green whip-like light forms. They latched onto Ralph's wing and slashed him. They stayed there for a second and then retracted. As they did so the slashed Ralph's skin, forcing a strange green energy out from the muscle. The strange light flew from the crobat to the Gengar, and disappeared down the ghosts form. The whips retracted again. Banshee suddenly looked a lot healthier.

Giga drain. Joe growled quietly. This pokémon was all about making the fight tedious for the opponent. Ralph would need to keep away from that attack. It would allow the Gengar to get its health back, which was the last thing they needed.

"Keep your distance, Ralph!" Joe called over the sound of Gengar's unending cackle. "Watch out for that attack."

Ralph kept his eyes focused on the fat purple ghost. It watched him maliciously from bellow, its evil eyes glaring up at him. Both pokémon were waiting for the other to attack so that they could react and counteract. But it appeared Banshee had a short attention span, and a short patience. Only ten seconds had passed before it decided to begin mocking its enemy. It stuck its long tongue out at Ralph, pulling the edges of its lips back with two fingers to form an even bigger smile.

Ralph's attack didn't come out of annoyance or offense. It came from patience and from knowing the right time to strike. He dived with commonly before noticed speed the second Banshee took its attention off of defence. About two seconds into its taunt did the Gengar realise its mistake. Ralph struck like a cleaver to the side of its head, his wing so sharp and so strong that it knocked the ghost backwards and left a sharp gash in its head.

Banshee sat up, half its face sliced open. Quickly the wound healed, and the ghosts face could be seen showing this time a smile of anger.

"Well done, Ralph." Joe cheered. Ralph wanted to let himself feel elated, but better judgement told him against it. If he turned away for one second he could be attacked. Landon's pokémon were smart, and strong. He needed full concentration. He couldn't even crow his thanks back.

"Focus!" Landon snapped. The Gengar glared back at him, its eyes tinged red with anger. Then it looked back to its opponent.

Banshee pressed its hands together in front of its chest and formed another shadow ball. Then it threw it. Ralph dodged the attack with ease. But as he evaded the attack he realised that Banshee was already creating a second shadow ball. He dodged the second one, and then a third one came flying at him. This one hit him on the right side of his body. He felt his skin sting and ache from the impact. He recoiled from the force of the attack. This left him open. Banshee leashed its green whips once more. They flew out towards Ralph, only just long enough to latch onto him.

"Look out!" Joe cried.

Ralph knew the attack was coming. He wasn't surprised by it. But he was surprised by its speed. It was aimed at his flailing wing. He tried to pull it back out of reach, but the tip of a whip only just scraped the ridge of his wing. That was enough for it to steal some of his health. Banshee was slowly finding ways to out-plan him. Through every move and mistake it made it found a way to combat him and recover health.

"You have to get close!" Joe realised. Ralph was unsure how that would help. If he got close then Banshee could use its giga drain attack more accurately. But that was when he realised something. If he was close then he could land attacks quickly and not have to worry about any of the moves his opponent pulled off. Shadow ball would be to inaccurate to aim with and Giga Drain wouldn't be possible if Ralph could land the attack first. As for double team, even if Banshee attempted it Ralph would see where the real Gengar was as it tried to get away. All of this was possible if he could get close without being hit and continue to circle close up. It sounded like a plan. He only hoped his assumptions would be right.

Ralph folded his wings and flew forwards. Banshee readied a giga drain. But instead of attacking, Ralph simply flew past and around the fat ghost. Banshee's attack missed, hitting the far wall in a flurry of green energy. Ralph continued to circle the ghost. Banshee tried to follow him, but he was moving too fast to keep up with. When Ralph had an open opportunity he unfolded a wing and slashed the Gengar in the back. It recoiled forwards, and Ralph continued to circle it. Banshee tried again to catch up with the bat, but he was nowhere near close enough to Ralph's speed. The crobat took another couple of swiped at the ghosts back.

Banshee was getting dizzy. It couldn't even see its attacker anymore. Ralph had disappeared into a ring of purple air that uninterruptedly circled his head and struck him in the back every few seconds. It wasn't too sure what to do to make him stop. He couldn't land any attacks, and he didn't have a chance to pull of double team. However, both Ralph and Joe had failed to notice that the Gengar had only used three moves. Most pokémon were capable of remembering four. The Gengar stopped moving and stood stock still. Energy began to glow around it. And then…

The shockwave was so powerful that it shattered the remaining glass on the tanks, sent papers flying off the far desk, and even caused a small crater in the ground. Ralph landed several feet back, wincing. He was still conscious, but it had been a close call. He hadn't been expecting an attack like. He hadn't expected his opponent to explode. He glanced back. Banshee was lying at the centre of the crater, face down into the brick. It didn't move, having expended all its energy just to take down the one crobat. It hadn't worked.

Ralph heard a laugh from in front of him. He looked up. He had landed only a few feet from Landon and his remaining pokémon. They looked down at him hatefully.

Landon smiled and clapped approvingly.

"Very well done." He said. "Your pokémon is clearly very smart. I didn't hear you even suggest a strategy like that to him." He stopped clapping abruptly. "But it wasn't smart enough to expect an attack like that."

Landon folded his arms and glanced back at his team.

"So, who wants to go next?" He asked. The five pokémon made an uproar of applause.

From their midst the massive gyarados lunged forwards, not even waiting for Ralph to get back into the air.

Ralph had no time to react, but somehow he managed to avoid the incoming lung attack, if only just. The top of Gyarados' jaw scraped his wing as he threw himself backwards. The giant sea serpent coiled and reared up, prepared to attack again if necessary.

"Rip them apart, Hydra!" Landon instructed.

"Hey now." Joe said with surprise. "I thought this was a fare fight."

Hydra had no cares for his comment. It reared back and lunged forwards, creating a torrent of water behind it. Ralph saw the incoming waterfall and dodged aside as Hydra's aquatic attack blasted past him. He readied himself to attack, only to find that Hydra he turn in mid trajectory and was now swinging its powerful tail towards his face. Ralph landed against the wall, the impact strong enough to crack a few bricks. He quickly recovered and prepared to fight back.

It seemed that Hydra's strength was around being aggressive. In order to counteract its attacks he'd have to be evasive and quick. That would make landing his own attacks tough, but if he could time them properly and land them in the right place he'd be able to pull through.

The problem came from dodging all of Hydra's attacks. As Ralph quickly figured out some of its moves were easier to dodge then others. Waterfall was a piece of cake to dodge, but every time he avoided it he'd be struck in the side by Hydra's tail. That attack was much harder to dodge purely because of its width. It was even tougher to dodge because his focus wasn't on it. But as attack after attack came he learned and managed to evade most of the following attempts to strike.

However that was when Hydra got more cunning. It began switching moves up. First it randomly tried to bit Ralph. He was taken by surprise, but he managed to avoid it by the skin of his wing. Then it tried using Waterfall again, which Ralph dodged once more. But instead of pulling of a following tail thrash, it spun a full three-sixty turn and bit at him. The edge of its fanged teeth scraped his spine as the crobat reacted too late.

Ralph yelped painfully, the tooth scarring his back. He blasted himself backwards with a powerful gust from his wings, gaining distance from the writhing beast. Hydra hissed at him. Then it began coiling upwards in a spiral. It was barely big enough to fit in the room when it was curled up, so it couldn't go very high. But it wasn't trying to attack. As it rotated in a curving shape strange energy began to form around it. The energy spiralled up with it, and stopped as it reached the tip of its head. Then the energy faded, and Hydra uncurled, its dance having ended. Its entire body was now shrouded in a pink and red aura. It hissed once again at Ralph, prepared to continue its fight.

Ralph prepared to fight again. He knew what to do. He had to dodge all Hydra's attacks and land a few of his own. It shouldn't be so tough by this point, now that he knew its attack pattern.

But as he soon realised, it was a lot tough now. Hydra lunged, but this time it was quicker, much quicker. It went from resting to inches away in the blink of an eye. Ralph had no chance of dodging it. He hadn't been prepared for it. The blue dragon headbutted him with its full force. Ralph landed on the desk at the end of the room, behind Joe. He lay there groaning for a few seconds before trying to get up. By then Hydra was already making its next attack.

Joe dived aside as a massive beam of ice was fired from the water dragon's mouth. Ralph spotted it just in time and rolled of the desk as it was struck by the beam. The wood froze to a point well below zero, and shattered after a few seconds into several icy chunks. Pieces of paper fell down from the air around them. Joe looked out from behind one of the tanks. He spotted Ralph lying weakly on the floor.

"Come on, buddy." He called, trying to be encouraging. "You can do it. Get up and get it."

Ralph groaned as he pushed himself to his wings. Hydra was already preparing another attack, and this one looked to be another waterfall. He had time to prepare. Hydra was quick, and it was strong, but accuracy wasn't just dependant on those two things. If Ralph wanted to survive this fight he'd have to be even more evasive. So he did the best thing he could think of. He used confuse ray.

Ralph wasn't expecting Hydra to do much harm to itself in a confused state, but if it were to lose focus on him he'd have more of a chance to dodge its attacks and land his own. The confuse ray worked perfectly. Hydra lunged forwards, jaws wide open, and swallowed the small ghostly dot in one felling bite. It appeared that ingesting the attack worked just as well as watching it. Ralph flew back and aside as the beastly sea serpent crashed into the wall behind him. Half way through its attack its vision had doubled and it had lost focus. Ralph had been able to avoid its strike unharmed.

He dodged aside like a quick shadow and brought his crossed wings down on the back of Hydra's neck. The purple mark he left cut in deep through its scales. Hydra roared and recoiled.

The sea serpent glared at its airborne opponent hatefully. It didn't even wait a second to attack again. It lashed once more forwards, body thrashing through the air. Ralph dodged upwards and slashed his wings downward, slicing the gyarados yet again on the back. Hydra rolled and reared up, attempting to bite him, but Ralph had flown out of reach.

The battle was getting more heated by this point. Hydra was only getting faster and faster, and by this point Ralph was finding it tough to keep out of range. Every time he dodged Hydra would lash out a second time and very nearly strike him. He was beginning to tire out too. He hadn't had a chance to rest during the fight with both of Landon's subject pokémon. And there were still four more to left. How could he keep this up? Sadly the confusion seemed to have worn off of Hydra. If it was still effecting it he could've tricked it into hurting itself more. But as it was he'd have to find another way.

Hydra reared up, its body still glowing with the reddish pink light. Frozen air began to fly into its lungs as the dragon prepared to unleash another ice beam. As it rose up, its head nearly touching the ceiling, it left its soft belly exposed. Ralph realised his opportunity. He waiting for the last second before the attack. Then, when Hydra was about to freeze him solid, his dived.

Ralph shot underneath the icicle beam and sped like a barbed bullet towards the dragon's belly. He struck with such force that he actually lifted it a few feet of the ground. He created enough space to pass straight under it in one ongoing glide. As he flew he lashed upwards with his wings, cutting into the dragons belly with his poisonous blades. And then he flew upwards and reappeared in the open air, the tip of the serpent's aquatic tail fanning him in the face as he flew out from under it.

Hydra roared in pain, its chest openly sliced up and oozing purple. And then it collapsed, landing flat on the ground. Ralph had induced so many toxic wounds into it at once that the pain was too much to cope with. It had fainted out of sheer agony, and considering Gyarados were pretty bulky pokémon that was saying something.

Landon didn't clap this time. His arms unfolded slowly, his expression a painting of pure surprise. He seemed to struggle with the words to say. Then he said… "Alright. I didn't see that coming. You genuinely surprised me with that."

"Excellent Ralph!" Joe called encouraging.

Ralph smiled back at his trainer. He was grateful that Joe appreciated what he was doing. He didn't want to be fighting, but if he didn't then Landon might not ever let them go. They had been here to long already, and now they both wanted out. So seeing his friend encourage him made the trial a little easier for him.

Feeling slightly more encouraged by this, Ralph turned around to battle again. And he was struck in the face by a blast of electricity. He collapsed to the ground, falling to his knees (or rather his back wings) using his larger front wings to hold himself up. He glared ahead of him. The Electabuzz was now standing in front of its master, ready to fight for its fallen companions.

"Surge, shoot it out of the sky!" Landon commanded.

Ralph groaned. He should've seen that coming. Landon was clearly the kind of asshole who'd make an attack like that. And this new opponent had a type advantage over him. Ralph resigned himself to battle once more, and took of yet again.

An electric pokémon was the worst kind of enemy Ralph could hope to fight right now. As if they weren't bad enough on most days, right now Ralph was tired, exhausted and very annoyed. This Electabuzz, Surge, seemed very unlikely to play nice or go easy on him. It was pumping its fists and sparking with static. It was very much ready for a fight, so Ralph would have to be also. Thankfully so far Landon had done nothing to clear away the defeated pokémon on the battlefield. So Surge had to run around the long form of the unconscious hydra whenever he wanted to attack Ralph close up. Banshee had disappeared like a ghost, so there was no need to worry about running into it. However that wouldn't protect Ralph from its ranged attacks. While he had height and speed to his advantage, this opponent had range, and a type advantage. It also had surprising accuracy and timing, as Ralph quickly realised.

The first thing Ralph did was dive down and hide behind the unconscious body of the gyarados. Thankfully Hydra was really long and bulky, so there was no way Electabuzz could get to him without having to go around. However, Surge was very aware of this. At first he tried to run after Ralph, but when he turned the corner Ralph took off and hid on the opposite side of the dragon. So the next time surge got close and waited. And as he waited he formed a lightning bolt in his gripped hand, ready to throw it the second Ralph reappeared.

Ralph, unsure where the Electabuzz had gotten to, peered his head over the top of the dragon. The second his eyes appeared from behind the blue scaled skin he was immediately struck with the bolt. He fell backwards, sparks falling down around him, and landed on the hard floor behind the dragon. As he recovered from the attack he heard the sound of his opponent laughing maniacally from the opposite side of the dragon.

Ralph growled. This thing was accurate and quick. It had spotted him before he'd even spotted it. The attack had come the instant he appeared. If he wanted to dodge it he'd have to be quick enough to avoid the attack. He couldn't let it hit him any more times. It might have catastrophic results if it did. He took a second to think of a plan, and then he acted it.

Ralph created a powerful gust by flapping his large wings back and forth quickly. The air he created passed over the form of the defeated Gyarados and battered the waiting Electabuzz, knocking it of balance. And that was Ralph's chance to fight back. He darted around the side of the fallen dragon, struck Electabuzz with a rigid wing as he flew past, and sped back into cover. The thunderous pokémon barely knew what had happened. It blinked, and then growled in anger, the bruise of an attack on its back.

"Stop playing around and blast that pest!" Landon roared.

Electabuzz took this very literally. It created two thunderbolts at once and hurled them upwards. The turned in mid art, nearly hitting the ceiling, and fell back down to earth. Ralph was lucky to spot them in time. He flew backwards as the bolts landed, exploding into sparks upon impact. He heard a following roar. He looked up over the form of the beast he hid behind. Electabuzz suddenly popper up, on a curved trajectory created by a very strong jump. Its arms were pulled up in a chopping motion, and it was ready to attack. It was too late for Ralph to dodge. He raised his wings up to block the attack.

Both attacks connected, a cross chop striking a cross poison. There was an eruption of sparks and poison around them.

From behind the unconscious gyarados Joe and Landon couldn't see what was happening, but the sound of various strikes and attacks and cries from both pokémon gave them a vague idea. And then Ralph came sailing out, landing heavily and painfully on his back a few feet away. Electabuzz hopped up on top of Hydra's defeated body and readied a thunderbolt.

"Blast it!" Landon screamed.

"Move!" Joe yelled.

Electabuzz threw its thunderbolt, aimed directly at Ralph's head. Ralph moved at the last second. He jumped into the air, barely avoiding the attack by a second. It struck the brick floor and exploded into shards of electricity. Ralph glared at his opponent. It hadn't waited a second to try and finish him off. It had taken the first chance it had to try and kill him, and he didn't appreciate that. But now he was airborne again, and he was angry. A rush of adrenaline was giving him the strength he needed to keep fighting back. Surge was strong, both physically and electrically, but if Ralph landed the right attacks he could bring it down He'd defeated the rest that Landon had thrown at him. He could defeat this one.

Ralph attacked. Surge attacked. Bother pokémon collided into the other. And there was an explosion. But not of electricity. Of poison. Ralph slashed at the Electabuzz, sharp wings slicing up, down and across the creature's chest. Each slice left a bright purple mark down its chest. All the while Surge seemed incapable of moving, its attack having failed and now being constantly battered backwards.

When Ralph finally stopped Surge fell forward onto one knee. He breathed heavily for a few seconds. It seemed he was done for, unable to raise himself to his feet. Then suddenly he did stand up. And as he stood up he roared. And as he roared he exploded into sparks.

Ralph was flung back against the wall. Landon shielded his eyes. Joe was knocked almost of his feet. The wave of sparks ended, and Surge stood up, suddenly revitalised. He was glowing with a slightly pink aura, and he seemed even more furious then before. Sparks were darting off his skin. Surge raised his arms up in a cross and roared once more.

"Yes!" Landon roared with him. "Destroy them! Destroy them both!"

Joe was stunned. Wasn't this supposed to be a simple battle? Why was Landon so furious with him? What was happening? Ralph was being crushed by Landon's enhanced subject pokémon.

"Enough!" Joe yelled at him. "This has gone too far!"

Landon gave him a solid, cold glare with inner fire.

"But we aren't finished yet." He said calmly, a sinister his in his tone now. "Your little friend is still able to fight. Only when he is defeated, or no pokémon is left does this fight end!"

Joe turned to where his friend had fallen. Ralph was back to his wings. He was clearly bruised, yet not quite defeated. He glared at Surge. Surge glared back. There were no words. There wasn't even a sound. Ralph just lunged.

Surge stood still, waiting for the attack. And as it came in, he dodged. Ralph's wing flew past his neck. And as he flew by Surge grabbed his erect wing. With a simple pull he swung Ralph around and threw him to the ground. The crobat thudded into the brick painfully. Surge, now having full advantage, jumped, ready to crash his opponents head into the ground. He raised back his arms in a crushing motion, ready to break the purple bat.

But as he came back down Ralph reacted. He simply swung a wing upwards. But that wing was glistening like metal, and was just as solid. The tip smashed into Surge's jaw, snapping its head back painfully. The thunderous creature landed with its legs open around Ralph. It stumbled backwards. And then Ralph flew up once more. He made a simple spin, and another wing hit the pokémon in the side of the head. Surge fell sideway and collapsed, out like a broken fuse.

Ralph panted, pain surging through his body. He was bleeding and bruised, but he was also still alive. He breathed heavily.

Joe was silent. Landon was stunned. His face went rather white. And then it went furious red.

"Okay!" He growled, gritting his teeth. "So you defeated my Electabuzz. Big deal." He folded his arms smoothly behind his back as he regained his composure. "But bare in mind those three you just defeated where my three weakest pokémon." He added, continuing on like some kind of evil genius. "Hardly a challenge for you, I suppose. The great hero who defeated Team Rocket for the third and final time in its history. To you this must be a simple warm up." He glanced at Ralph, and then gave a short smug smile. "Though maybe you've let yourself go a little." He added.

Joe had reached his boiling point by now. He'd had to watch everything Landon was doing and saying. He'd seen him making aggressive calls, wanting to actually kill him and Ralph. And now he was taunting him, acting like they never happened. This fight was going to stop, right now.

"Stop!" Joe said simply. Landon looked at him, eyebrows raised. "Stop this fight!" Joe continued.

Landon gave him a smugly confused look. "Stop the fight?" He said innocently. "But I thought you were having fun."

Joe's voice was a low growl. "You are trying to kill my pokémon." He said. "You just told your Electabuzz to destroy us both. I refuse to continue." He took a few quick steps forwards, heading for the exit.

But Landon had other ideas.

"I wouldn't try getting much closer." He said simply. From behind him he pulled out a long, metal Bo Staff with a wooden handle. There was a small energy pack attached to the handle, and the metal body seemed retractable. Landon spun it once between his hands, and then pointed the tip in Joe's direction.

Joe stopped and stared at the weapon. "That's Alaric's Bo Staff!" He said quietly.

Landon looked genuinely surprised. "You know about his Bo Staff?" He asked. And then he chuckled. "Of course you do. Walker wouldn't have left that out. He was always a sucker for detail."

"Where did you get it?" Joe asked.

"Where do you think?" Landon said. "You honestly don't believe that he'd simply lose something like this? It was knocked from his hands during a fight, and I stole it. That's how I got it." He waved the tip around in the air. "And I suppose you know what it does?"

Joe didn't know, but he didn't want Landon to know that.

"Try me." He said, his eyes narrowed.

Landon chuckled. "Stupid boy." He clicked a tiny hidden button on the handle, and suddenly a barrage of air was fired from the tip. It was so strong that Joe was not only knocked back, he was thrown back. He landed a few feet away, skidding across the rock floor. Ralph flew over to his side to help him up, while Landon continued to chuckle sinisterly.

"You aren't as smart as you pretend to be." He warned menacingly. "And neither are you heroic." He turned to his pokémon. "Nemesis, slice them up a bit!" He hissed.

The red metal Scizor stepped forwards, clicking its pincers excitedly. It rushed at them, claws arcing in a slashing movement.

Ralph resigned himself to the fight. By this point he was expecting to fight. Landon wasn't prepared to stop any time soon. He seemed very eager to see both their heads on a spike in some dilapidated dungeon. So Ralph flew in to block the attack. But he hadn't been expecting what happened next. The Scizor lashed out at him. But instead of going for a slash, it went for a grab. Its pincer grabbed Ralph's wing and yanked it forwards. Ralph exclaimed in pain as he was pulled forwards and then throw aside with a single pull. He skidded across the floor for a few feet before rolling over and pushing himself up onto all four wings.

He attempted to take off with the hopes that he could aerially assault the opponent. But as he tried he felt his wings his wings lose their strength. Suddenly he collapsed, falling back to the ground, unable to fly any longer. He looked at himself. Every part of his body was aching with tiredness. His wings were limp and barely usable. He could hardly even hold himself up. Slowly his strength was sapping away. He couldn't fly. Poison wouldn't work because Scizor was resistant, and steel wing was unlikely to do much. None of his attacks would save him. He wasn't able to fly, so he couldn't dodge anywhere nearly as well. He wasn't terribly resistance to damage. He was an easy target now. He was done for.

Nemesis knew this only too well. It slowly approached, claws clicking eagerly. It raised them like guillotines, ready to finish this fight with one swift blow. It kept walking till it stood right above Ralph, its thin legs tapping on the brick floor. It stared down at him. One claw twitched slightly with the eagerness to pull off the finishing blow.

But in its eagerness it left itself open. Ralph wasn't strong enough to take it out then and there, but he had enough strength left to keep fighting. He had just about enough to regain the advantage. And all it would take was one precise attack. Thankfully he had a perfect shot.

Ralph lashed forwards with a steel wing. Nemesis yelled and fell forwards, landing on top of the purple bat. Ralph's wing had struck out its thin, weak legs. It hadn't taken much force, but it had been enough to knock the metallic bug off balance. And now Ralph had it on the floor. This was a chance he could afford to miss.

Ralph rolled out from under the bug and began slashing further at it with the same metallic wing. He struck it twice on the chest, the attacks practically bouncing of harmlessly. The Scizor was clearly taking damage however. It winced every time it was struck. But while Nemesis was down it wasn't defenceless.

With a strong claw it blocked the third swipe, and then with its other free arm it threw a punch straight into Ralph's forehead. The crobat fell backwards, landing beside the metal insect. Within a second Nemesis was back to its feet, claws clicking furiously. Its eyes glared red at Ralph as it prepared to cut him to pieces.

"Look out!" Joe yelled desperately.

Ralph raised his wings up as the attacks came down. He blocked the grabbing claws with his wings, but the result had only been Nemesis getting a solid hold of him. The iron mantis hauled him up by the wing joints and held him two feet above the ground. Then it began to swing him around. As it did so moved towards the wall, where it began pummelling him into the brick. Then it threw him into the floor, and let go once more.

Ralph coughed and groaned, dust in his lungs and heavy bruising all over his body. This thing was aggressive, and quick. It knew where to attack and how to deal a lot of damage. The Scizor stood over him again, claws raised once more. But unfortunately for it, it hadn't learned from its last mistake.

Ralph lashed out. And Nemesis fell flat onto the ground, roaring with annoyance as it did so. This time Ralph rolled aside before it could land on him, giving him more time to attack.

At least he'd assumed he'd have more time. But Nemesis was quicker then he'd originally thought. He'd only gotten one hit in this time before Nemesis raised its claw and blocked his wing. It then followed up with a steel claw. Ralph was knocked several feet back, landing painfully on his spine.

Nemesis pushed itself beck to its legs, glaring furiously. But it didn't rush in to attack immediately. It could have. Ralph was still lying flat on the ground. But instead it chose to start waving its arms about. It swung its claws through the air in a sort of choreographed motion, like a knight wielding a sword. It finished by crossing its claws across its chest and then throwing them downwards. A metallic shimmer ran down its body.

Ralph had gotten back up by this point. He was pretty fed up, a little angry, but mostly tired. After this he was having a long and uninterrupted sleep. That is if he survived this ordeal. Nemesis seemed very eager for that to not happen. It wanted him to fall here and now. The others didn't need to face him. It could take him out right now, no trouble needed. Landon would certainly be pleased with him if he did that.

Nemesis lunged. It slashed its arms wildly through the air, the tips leaving a trail of browning-green energy. Ralph dodged back, but every time he did Nemesis only seemed to get closer. And it wasn't slowing. Its fury cutter kept slicing up and down and left and right. It was desperately trying to land an attack. Slowly it was pushing Ralph back towards the wall.

Ralph retaliated, but his attack was blocked by the flurry of cuts. So he resorted to force. He used most of his remaining strength to blast the Scizor backwards with a massive gust of air. Nemesis was buffeted by the powerful gust. He wasn't knocked over, but his legs weren't strong enough to keep him in the same spot. He slid backwards across the rock, leaving a few scrape lines behind him. But after the attack ended Nemesis seemed mostly unhurt.

It followed up the attack with its own aerial assault. It threw a flurry of crescent blades in Ralph direction. Ralph curled up as the razor wind passed around him. A few lucky blades sliced his spine and body, most passed by harmlessly. However the few that did hit stung like hell. They had done quite a bit of damage for such a simple attack. And now Nemesis was running in for another attack.

Ralph was tired of fighting this thing, so he decided to go with the easy option he had available to him. He attempted to confuse Nemesis. The confuse ray sped from his mouth and floated around the head of the Scizor. Stupidly the metal mantis began trying to swipe at it, trying to grab the dot of light. The ghostly dot was intangible, so any attempt the Scizor made to claw it was in vain. But that didn't stop it from continuously trying. And as it was distracted it was left open. Ralph now had a full open chance to attack.

Without a second of wasted time, Ralph jumped at his opponent. For a second he was flying again, his wings strong enough to keep him gliding just above the ground. It was long enough to reach his opponent. His wings turned silver like steel and lashed out as he arrived. Nemesis saw him at the last second, but it was too late.

Ralph's wing slashed the creature in the neck, striking heavily like hammers to its windpipe. Ralph landed back on all four wings a few feet behind the creature. Nemesis gripped its throat, choking quietly. Slowly it fell backwards, reaching forwards with one hand. And then it was out cold, the strike to its throat proving consequential. Ralph sighed, glancing back at his fourth defeated foe and feeling more grateful then proud.

Joe was so glad that, for the moment, Ralph was holding on. Each opponent seemed worse than the previous one, but somehow Ralph was fending them off. No matter what Landon threw at them, they were still fighting back.

"Do you see this?" Joe shouted across the room. "Ralph is still going. No pokémon you throw at us can defeat us!"

What Joe had yelled was sadly arrogant. Landon simply smiled at him with a knowing grin. It was the kind of knowing grin that omniscient serial killers wore when speaking to their future victims for the first time. It was the kind that could send chills down the spines of dragons.

Landon made no physical movement. You couldn't even see him breath.

"Are you so certain?" He asked simply.

Joe suddenly started to feel a lot less confident. The way he was acting suggested that he was up to something, and it couldn't be good.

"Yes." He said, trying to play confidence.

Landon just chuckled. "Well, we'll see." He said. He turned slowly to the massive machamp standing next to them. "Colossus… do what you do best." He said, waving a hand.

The towering grey skinned fighter flexed its four buff muscular arms and roared with adrenaline. It stomped slowly out onto the battlefield, punching and swinging its arms through the air, readying its muscles to fight viciously and violently.

Ralph looked back and gave Joe a very annoyed glare. Joe could only look apologetic. Ralph turned back to face his new opponent.

Colossus was glared with wide, blood hungry eyes at his grounded opponent. It seemed to be wearing its own maniacal smile. And as it approached Ralph could make out the quiet his of excited breathing.

Colossus raised its four arms and swung them down in two gripped fists. Ralph dodged back, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the attack. He knew it was coming, and had moved at the last second to allow himself a chance to attack. He jumped a few feet of the ground a slashed the machamp across the chest with his wing. Colossus stumbled back a few steps. It recovered quickly, and then it lunged. The bulky humanoid monster jumped forwards and threw itself at the startled bat, landing on top of him and grappling him between his four arms. The titan crushed Ralph in a deadly bear hug. Ralph screamed in pain.

In desperation he bit at his attacker, digging his sharp fangs into the machamps shoulder, but it did nothing to save him. Colossus rolled over, holding the crobat down by his wings, and then used his upper pair of arms to begin pummelling him into the ground. Each punch was like an earthquake. The floor itself shook with the force. Joe could only watch as his pokémon was mercilessly beaten.

But somehow, beyond all possible belief, Ralph was not defeated by this. When Colossus finally stopped attacking, he was still conscious, although very badly bruised. And he was very angry. The second the attacks stopped coming he retaliated. Ralph swung his lower body upwards and slashed Colossus across the chest with his lower wings. Colossus stumbled backwards in surprise. Two purple scars ran down the side of its chest, not forming an X and rather more of a mirrored gash, but still proving just as effective. Ralph was now free, his wings feeling weaker for it but at least he could move one again. Colossus was not happy about this.

It ran at Ralph, a fist pulled back to punch. Ralph dodged it with ease and swung in with a wing, aiming for the waist. However Colossus had prepared a second attack. As Ralph attack came in it blocked it with a hand and threw it to the left, while another hand formed a fist and struck downwards onto the side of Ralph's head. The crobat landed heavily on the floor at Colossus's feet, its counter proving very efficient.

The hulking giant grabbed Ralph by the wings and hauled him up, two arms keeping him held and the other two preparing to cause him a lot of harm. It then proceeded to pummel him, its fists moving like lightning, each punch hitting harder than the first. Ralph only just held onto his consciousness. And when this proved ineffective Colossus threw him at the wall. Ralph didn't even have a chance to fall to the floor before he was grabbed again and thrown into the opposite wall.

He was too tired to fight back now. Any strength he tried to gather faded in seconds. He couldn't even stand up. Colossus was looming over him again, its arms folded and cackling proudly.

"Ralph!" Joe yelled, desperately trying to encourage his friend. "Get up!"

Colossus grabbed Ralph by the one wing and lifted him up screaming from the floor. It stared at him with cold eyes, and then readied a cold fist to finish him off.

Ralph's eyes turned to the ice punch, and as he stared at it he remembered who he was. He was the crobat that had defeated the pokémon league. He was the crobat that had defeated Team Rocket. He was the crobat who had made friends with a human. He was Ralph. It didn't matter if he was a real crobat or some lab experiment, he was Ralph, and that was all that mattered. And Ralph would never give up, no matter what the odds were, not when his friend's safety was a t risk. He could finish the fight, even if it meant losing, he could finish his opponent of too.

Ralph's eyes turned back to his opponents. Colossus was about to attack. Using the last of his strength, Ralph lashed out with his free wing. At attack struck, and there was a slashing sound.

Colossus recoiled in pain, screaming as its eyes were struck. It let go Ralph, stumbling backwards blindly. And Ralph was free to finish it off.

Ralph brutalized the machamp. When it finally went down there was a solid guarantee that it wouldn't get back up.

Ralph relaxed, landing back on the ground. He was panting heavily now. Almost all of his strength and energy was gone, sapped away by Landon's leechlike subjects. He was so tired. But he knew that the fight wasn't over yet. Landon still had one pokémon left. It was floating right beside him.

The scientist stood stock still, no expression on his face. When he finally did more it was to clap.

"You have not failed to impress me, I must say." He said wholeheartedly. "You and your little friend successfully defeated five of my strongest experiments, without making a commands or using any healing items. Even I couldn't have imagined that. I underestimated you." His clapping stopped abruptly.

"Are we done, Landon?" Joe asked exhaustedly. "I defeated five of your so-called pokémon. I took your test. Ralph can't take any more fighting." Joe gave him a pleading look. "Please… just let us go now. We got what we came for."

Landon's expression grew slowly darker, becoming more stern and angry for no apparent reason.

"But I haven't." He said simply. "If you leave, I lose. I will not lose." He took a step back. "Only one pokémon left. If you can defeat him, you can go… both of you." He shook his head. "But you won't win."

The two friends slowly looked at each other, as Landon's last pokémon, Subject #14, the crobat known as Grim, took its place on the battlefield.


	8. Chapter 8: Subject 13

For Ralph it was like looking at a mirror. Grim was exactly the same as him, more than just the same species and gender. He was the same shape, the same dark shade of purple, the same eyes, the same mouth, the same teeth, the same physicality, the same wing span for all four wings. He was a complete duplicate. There was nothing that could physically differentiate them. But mentally they seemed to be polar opposites. Ralph was normally calm, yet defensive and stern if needs be. Grim however looked wild and violent by nature. His eyes were larger and wider and more glaring then Ralph's, as if he'd seen dreadful things. Any expression he tried to show looked evil no matter what. He was currently smiling at his older brother with a distasteful glare and a teething grin. His brow was low and his stare was piercing. He seemed hungry for blood, which was apt considering he was a man sized bat.

"Would you look at them." Landon said, arms out wide to his sides. "Brothers reunited. Born from no natural womb. Clone brothers, made from the same DNA as their surrogate parent. It's almost poetic."

Joe glared at the man. There was nothing poetic about this. Grim was clearly wild, he could tell just by looking at him. It was likely that he'd try to kill Ralph if not controlled properly. But Landon seemed to care nothing about that. He wanted a fight. He wanted a victor. He was out to prove something. Joe didn't want his friend hurt, but he had no choice. Up to this point he and Ralph had been lucky. He could only hope that would hold up.

Landon clapped his hands together. "So it has come down to this." He said quietly. "Who has the stronger crobat?" He rubbed his hands together. "Well, I'm just dying to find out. I don't know about you."

Joe gave him no response. Landon shook his head. Then he turned to his crobat.

"Grim…" He said. And that was all he needed to say. Grim had been ready to fight the second he'd been freed from his cylindrical cage. He flapped his wings, slowly getting faster and faster. And then he attacked, flying straight across the battlefield towards his not biological brother.

"Ralph…!" Joe cried in alarm.

Ralph knew the attack was coming. He had been watching his look-alike opponent very closely. He was stunned to see another creature that looked exactly like him. He rarely got to meet other crobats. The only one he had met before this day was Koga's crobat, and interestingly enough he'd met that one during a pokémon battle as well. But this one was different. Koga's crobat had been just another crobat. Grim however was like Ralph's twin. In fact it was Ralph, in a sort of sense. They were both clones of the same pokémon, they'd just had different lives and experiences. Ralph had met a human who took good care of him. Grim meanwhile was stuck with Landon. Ralph pitied him. He couldn't help but feel that, if he hadn't escaped, or been let free as might be the case, he could have very well ended up like Grim himself. Angry and aggressive for no real reason, abused and locked up in a tank, experimented on. But pity wouldn't help them now. Grim was preparing an attack, and Ralph had to defend himself and his friend.

Grim flung himself at his brother, teeth bared and wings lashing like knives on ropes. Ralph acted to dodge, but Grim was just as fast as he was. He barely avoided the bite attempt that Grim made. And sadly Grim that the fortune of not being completely exhausted. Ralph was struggling to stay in the air. He was using all his strength to stay up. He could hardly focus, he could hardly move. One wrong move and he'd suffer for it, yet he didn't have the energy left to counter his opponent.

Grim attacked again, this time with aerial ace. It slashed Ralph across the chest. He screamed in pain. He made an attempt to fight back, slashing his wings wildly about. Grim dodged every strike with ease. For him it was like playing a game. He was just toying with Ralph. He knew he was too tired to fight well, and he was teasing him, playing with his prey until finally it gave up completely.

Ralph was determined. Even though he didn't have much strength he kept going, unwilling to give up just yet. As Grim made another lunging attack he swung around and struck his duplicate on the back as hard as he could. But Grim hardly seemed hurt. In fact it laughed at him.

The crobat spun around, wings out flat, and struck Ralph in the side of the head. Ralph his the ground hard, groaning with injuries. He was already reaching his limits. But Grim wasn't done yet. The crobat backed up, gaining distance from his target. And then he lunged again, moving faster than before. He was faster than Ralph. As subject #13 pushed himself back up he was struck in the back by the passing Subject #14's wing. Grim flew back around for another attack.

Ralph was running purely on adrenaline now. The second this fight was over, whether he won or lost, he was going straight to sleep, whether he wanted to or not. He was also being fuelled by anger. Seeing this creature, this clone that looked exactly like him, fighting so violently made his blood boil. He wanted it gone. He wanted Landon gone. He wanted Joe to be safe.

As Grim came flying back in Ralph lashed out with steel wing. He swung the limb at his opponents face, hoping to stop it in its tracks. But he was taken by surprise, as Grim blocked his attack with his own wing. Ralph stared in horror as the crobat flew past, one wing holding back his own, the other swinging sideways towards his stomach. Ralph lurched forwards, winded by the attack. Grim didn't even need to turn around for his next attack. He lashed out backwards, slashing Ralph down the spine with his sharp wing tips. Ralph was knocked to his ground by the attack, yelling in pain. His skin was ruptured and blood was starting trickle slowly out. He hissed breath through his teeth. Slowly he looked back and glared up at his brother. Grim had the eyes of a maniac. The sight of blood in his prey seemed to spark an animalistic hunger. He licked his lips eagerly.

Ralph slowly pushed himself back up. He wasn't done yet. He could still fight. He would let this creature, this thing best him. For not only his own sake but also his friends, he would defeat him. He would not lose!

Ralph spun around and slashed at Grim. The sharp edge of his wing sliced across the belly of his clone brother. But it did absolutely no harm. Not even a mark was left behind. Grim didn't even blink. A horrifying grin grew across his face. It widened its mouth and bit down hard. Ralph screamed as his wing was clenched between Grim's sharp jaws. He tugged hard, but the harder he pulled the worse the biting got. He could feel his skin ripping. He was eating his wing!

In desperation Ralph struck Grim on the top of the head with his wing. He did not let go. Ralph kept trying, striking quicker and harder. Still grip wouldn't let go. So Ralph resorted to plan B. He reached out and bit Grim's wing instead. The two crobats were left in a rotating levitating purple circle, clamping onto each other's wings with their sharp bare teeth. Until finally Ralph let go. He was too week to keep a hold. And Grim was waiting for this. He lashed out with his bitten wing and struck Ralph in the mouth. Ralph stumbled back, choking from the attack, stunned. Grim finally let go with his teeth, and instead aimed for somewhere else. Ralph's face. The wild and violent crobat threw itself at Ralph and attempted to bite his face off.

"Ralph!" Joe screamed. There was nothing he could do to help his friend. Landon was watching him with cold eyes, Alaric's staff held in his left hand. If Joe tried anything to help his friend he'd be attacked and sent flying back across the room. He wanted to rush over and pulled the attacking crobat off of him, but he couldn't. This wasn't going well. Ralph was too tired to fight, but this creature was only just warming up.

Ralph held Grim back with his weakened wings, but he was only just able to keep it away. Grim was gnashing his teeth viciously, trying to bite at Ralph's neck. Ralph did everything he could to keep him back, but Grim was relentless. Ralph couldn't fight him like this. His four wings were being used to push the attacker back. He couldn't escape, Grim was too heavy. He was pinned under him like a rabbit trapped by a wolf. And every second Ralph was only getting weaker.

He did his best, but in the end his strength failed him. It was a simple chance that, for a tiny second, his left wing went numb at the joint and lost its strength. But it was enough to allow Grim his attack. The attacking crobat grabbed hold of Ralph's neck with his teeth and bit down hard with sharp purple-glowing fangs. Ralph screamed. His left wing was crushed under Grim's weight and his throat was getting throttled by a row of sharp teeth. He struck Grim on the side with his only free wing, but it did nothing to save him.

Joe watched in horror as his oldest and closest friend was savaged by this wild abomination. Landon during this whole time was smiling with the most malicious and victorious smile.

"Yes!" He egged on. "Keep going! Prove your dominance! Kill it!"

Joe glared at this man. This man who had brought him here with his letter. This man who had claimed to reveal the truth. All he'd wanted was to kill Ralph this whole time. He wanted to destroy his first successful clone, just to prove his newer ones were better. This man who stood before Joe was no scientist, no human being. He wanted to see them die. He only wanted to see the hero who had stopped Team Rocket for the third and last time suffer at the hands of his superior pokémon. Joe had to do something. He had to stop this. Ralph was going to be killed if he didn't. No matter what, this fight had to stop.

He took a step forwards. Landon reacted in an instant. The tip of the Bo Staff came swinging upwards and from the end a blast of powerful air was sent flying straight towards Joe. The boy went flying backwards across the room, where he hit the edge of the desk and crumpled forwards.

Ralph watched in horror as his companion crumpled against the back wall. He called out, but Joe didn't respond. He didn't move. Ralph couldn't tell if he was breathing. He screamed. Still Joe didn't move. And a surge of anger came flooding from his brain. Ralph felt true grief and hatred flooding through him. He looked back at his duplicate brother who was now trying to strangle him. He saw the massive bite mark that he had on his own neck, still red and bleeding from the attack. And he got angry, angrier then he'd ever been before.

Grim raised a wing up, ready to slice Ralph half. But it was surprised to find its attack blocked by a purple wing. Ralph sat up and pushed Grim away. The attacking crobat was shocked to see its battered and bruised opponent suddenly fighting back. Ralph get back into the air, glaring with bright yellow eyes at his younger opponent. Grim stared back, stunned. Then it began to laugh. The creature cackled an insane cackle through a bloodied throat and yellowed teeth.

"Destroy it!" Landon yelled.

Grim attacked again. It threw both its wings down towards Ralph's head, but Ralph blocked with a steel wing. His other wing lashed up and struck Grim in the chin. The wild crobat stumbled backwards, taken by surprise. Ralph then attacked with a cross poison to the chest. Grim yelled as the wings came slashing down and cut right through his skin.

Ralph kept on attacking, swinging harder and faster, slowly pushing his opponent backwards towards the wall. Each attack seemed to do more harm than the last. He was using all his remaining strength to defeat this thing, and it was working. Grim couldn't do anything fight back. Any attempt it made was blocked and countered by Ralph.

Finally Ralph pushed it up to the wall. And he ended the fight with a powerful headbutt to the beasts face. Grim collapsed to the ground, wings folded up on its chest. Its eyes stared forwards at its opponent, but no strength could be seen in them. It was still conscious, though not enough to fight back.

Ralph sighed with relief. Then, remembering about his friend, he rushed over to Joe.

The trainer was lying limply against the desk, his head lulled forwards. He didn't look to badly hurt but he wasn't moving. Ralph landed beside his friend and began fussing over him. A wave of fear and concern was washing over him. He didn't know what to do. He couldn't tell if Joe was badly hurt or merely knocked out. He held a wing around the back of head and hugged him close, small tears in his eyes.

There was a slow groan of pain from the boy's mouth. Ralph looked down at him. Slowly his eyes began to open. Ralph gave a sigh of relief. He was awake.

Ralph rubbed the back of his head as Ralph let go of him.

"Ouch!" He muttered. "That really hurt." He looked up at Ralph. "What happened?" He asked. "Did you win?" Ralph nodded slowly. Joe chuckled. "I knew you could do it buddy." He said, patting Ralph on the head. "Mind helping me up."

Ralph gave Joe his wing and helped the boy up from the floor. Joe stood clumsily on his feet, a little uncertain of himself. Being flung into the far wall could really know the sense out of someone. But he seemed okay.

"Let's get out of here." Joe said. Ralph nodded in agreement.

The two of them turned around. Suddenly the walls of hope and gratitude crumbled under the weight of an ocean of misfortune. Grim the ferocious crobat was back to his wings and glaring at the two of with his evil eyes. It stared at the two of them. And then its mouth opened and a blood curdling screech blasted from it. Joe and Ralph covered their ears. And in the pain Grim attacked, flying with bladed wings straight towards them. There was nothing but hatred and fury in its eyes. It was aiming to kill now.

With no thought for his own safety, Ralph threw himself in front of his friend. Joe and Ralph looked into each other's eyes. Joe looked at his pokémon with terrified eyes. All Ralph looked was sorry. And then the attack hit. Ralph clenched up, the blades of the wings striking him in the spine. Slowly he fell from the air, landing flat on the rock ground. He lay on his, staring across the floor with lifeless eyes.

Joe looked up from his friend's body to see Grim inches away from him, wings tipped with fresh blood. It glared at him with the same evil expression. And then it turned around and flew back to Landon's side.

Landon had an expression of deep satisfaction, as if he'd just become the literal king of the world.

"And there we have our end." He said simply. "I win."

Joe knelt down beside his friend. Ralph wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing. His empty stare looked hopelessly at Joe's feet. Tears began to fall from the trainer's eyes. He put a hand to his companion's head. The heat was fading from it fast. Joe struggled to fight back against the feeling of loneliness and loss in his heart.

"He's not dead." Landon called across the room. Joe turned his traumatized gaze towards the opponent. "Not yet. He's just unconscious." Joe blinked. "You think I'd make my pokémon actually kill him?" He asked.

"You were telling them to." Joe said coldly.

"That was simply me getting excited." Landon explained. "I may have made them violent and extreme, but I would never make them kill like that. I'm not that cruel." He place a hand on top of Grim's head.

Joe stood up, tears still falling from his eyes. "So what now?" He asked, wiping his nose.

"Now?" Landon asked, a small smile crossing his face. "Now… you're free to go." He turned to the unconscious Crobat by Joe's feet. "But he's staying." He added.

Joe looked down at Ralph, then back at Landon.

"Why is he staying?" Joe asked suspiciously.

Landon titled his head. "You didn't think I'd be prepared to let my first successful experiment escape again, did you?" He asked loudly. "Not after spending a whole year trying to learn where he went. No, I'm not letting him get away again so easily."

Joe narrowed his eyes.

"What do you want with him?" He asked slowly.

Landon folded his arms and took a few steps towards the boy.

"I hate to even consider admitting it…" He said very honestly. "But your friend here is stronger than any pokémon I could ever create. He took down five of my six strongest experiments, and even then he only lost because he took a killing blow for you." Landon held his head. "You think I'd skip on a chance to understand how such power came to be?" He asked.

Joe looked down at his friend.

"You want to experiment on him?" Joe realised.

"Experiment is a harsh word." Landon corrected him. "I want to _study_ him. I want to learn what makes him stronger than any other pokémon I can make. Of all my creations, he is the strongest. I want to learn where I went wrong."

"Well, I'm sorry Landon, but you can't have him." Joe said, taking a step forward on his unsure feet.

"Are you so sure?" Landon asked sarcastically. "I know he's your friend, but you don't need him. You have a lot of other pokémon. He certainly doesn't need you." Landon shrugged. "You may think he got you through the pokémon leagues, but would you have gotten that far with just him?" He asked slyly.

Joe didn't answer. He took another step forwards.

Landon smiled wider. "You could have." He continued. "I can unlock his strength further. I can make Ralph a one pokémon killing machine. I can make him an unstoppable force. When I'm done with him you won't need any other pokémon. You could defeat the leagues a thousand times over, just you and him. Ultimate power. If you gave him to me I could unlock that power just for you."

"You think I'd trust you?" Joe said, taking another step forwards. "You worked for Team Rocket. You still do. You experiment on pokémon. You made clones that are so wild that they're almost uncontrollable. You think I'd give my closest friend to you like this?"

"Think about it, Joe. I can make Ralph undefeatable. You'll never have to train him or watch him fail ever again. He'll be unstoppable! He'll be perfect!"

"You think I want that?" Joe asked. "You think I want Ralph to be unstoppable, or as you put it _Perfect_? I'm happy with the way he is. I don't care if he loses some times. I'd rather he be a living, thinking creature that can make mistakes, then some kind of violent brutish beast that enjoys seeing its opponent ripped to shreds." Joe's glare turned upon Grim. The wild-eyed crobat was smiling malevolently at him and Ralph from the back end of the room.

"I'm only going to make this offer once." Landon reminded him, his voice suddenly much sterner then before. "You could have the strongest pokémon this world has ever seen, and all it would take is a few tests to make that possible. Do you really want to turn that away?"

Joe snarled at the man, anger beginning to grow from his young heart.

"Like I could ever trust you!" He said sharply. "You are one of Team Rocket's scientists. You don't want to create the world's strongest pokémon for me! You want him for yourself. You're just making empty promises so that I don't cause trouble. But you forget, I stopped Team Rocket. I defeated Archer. That was me, and Ralph, and our friends. It doesn't matter what shit you come up with in your lab, you can't win, not when no one else stands beside you. Your own boss gave up on your little project." Joe paused, real fire in his eyes. "You think that power comes from physical strength." He said. "It doesn't, not real power. It comes from respect… and courage… and mental strength. It comes from strength as a group, not as an individual. None of your subjects, your experiments, could ever hope to be as strong as me and Ralph. Because how could they ever connect to you. You locked them up in a cage, grew them like cattle, forced them to be strong, and made them freaks just to prove you could do it." He reached a hand slowly to his back. "And if you think I'd let you do that to Ralph…" His hand slipped inside a pocket at the back of his bag. "You can just go to hell, along with your experiments, with Archer and the rest of Team Rocket!"

Landon sighed. "Very well. If you won't get out my way then I'll just have to get rid of you myself. Grim!" The menacing crobat turned to its master. "Kill him!"

Joe knew that what he'd just done put his life at risk. He knew that Landon wouldn't just let him leave, not without complying with his wants. But Joe would never choose to leave his friend behind, not with a man like this. He would never let him be experimented on. So he chose to throw himself into the firing line just to save him from that future. But Joe was not as unarmed as he seemed.

Grim flew at his wing knife-edged wings. He flew towards him so fast that he was hardly visible. But Joe was quick enough to react. He pulled out from his bag a strange blue device attached to an arm brace. He threw it onto his right arm with a simple movement, and within another second his arm was against his chest. Grim was feet away. Joe pressed the small button next to his thumb. Grim arrived and attacked.

There was a sudden explosion of light around Joe. From the wrist device a massive diamond shield expanded, glistening blue and white. From the centre of the shield a wall of energy formed, expanding around Joe's entire body within half a second. He held it out ahead of him like a massive wall of light. And Grim crashed straight into it. The crobat bounced back in surprise.

Landon was suddenly stunned. "The shield!" He muttered. "Where did you get that?"

"My uncle gave it to me." Joe explained. "To protect myself."

Landon looked now impressed. "So noble of him." He said. "To give his only living relative a weapon to defend himself. He clearly put that data I left behind to good use. But I'm afraid it won't help you for long."

Joe glanced at the shield. It ran on energy in order to keep the protect sphere up. However that energy ran out quickly, especially when not in direct sunlight, and Grim's attack had taken a lot of it down. He couldn't keep it up so much longer. He looked around. He could run, but if he did he'd leave Ralph behind. He couldn't fight Grim, and he couldn't hold him back forever. So what could he do?

Grim attacked again, bouncing once more off the light wall. The energy bar fell again. Joe took a few more steps forwards.

"Hiding behind a wall was always s what you Glende's did best." Landon taunted. "Your uncle hid behind one for years, and your father built plenty of them, mostly to keep pokémon trapped inside."

Joe steeled his emotions. He wasn't about to let this man put him off. If he could get close to him then maybe he could tackle him and take his Bo staff. Maybe then he could use that to get rid of Grim.

The crobat attacked again, this time slashing twice at Joe's shield with both wings. Both bounced off once more, and the shield's energy bar depleted further. Almost half of it was gone now. Joe felt a small spark of panic.

"You can only keep that up so long." Landon reminded him. "If you take it down now I'll still let you leave. It doesn't have to end this way."

Joe lookd up at the man with hateful eyes. "Go to hell!" He said quietly.

"Destroy him!" Landon commanded. "Destroy them both!"

Grim attack again, throwing its entire body weight. Joe's shield was losing energy fast. It could only take one more attack before it failed. And Landon was backing up. He wouldn't get to him in time. There was nothing he could do. He raised his shield up in one final act of defence, and gripped it with both arms. Grim collided into it. The force field shattered like thin glass around him. And out of rising panic, Joe shoved his attacker with the brunt of his shield.

Grim's expression changed from gleeful blood hunger to sudden fear. One second he had a grip on Joe's shield with his wings, and then they were slipping away. He felt himself being thrown to the left side, unable to control his direction or movement. His wings crumpled under the force. He couldn't fight back. And he went flying across the room, where he eventually his the glass tank marked 'Subject #14'.

The tank was destroyed in an instant. Sparks flew up from the control board, strange green liquid poured out through the burst pipes, metal creaked and splintered. Grim was caught up instantly in the wiring and crushing metal. He screeched like a tortured monstrosity, his wings flailing as much as they could in their crushed state, desperately trying to break free. But he wasn't strong enough to move the metal that now imprisoned him.

Suddenly the other five tanks began to spark as well. Volts of electricity burst from the control panels as the wiring broke and the liquids used in the machines escaped their tubing.

"What have you done?" Landon exclaimed. "What have you done?!" The man began to back away towards the exit. "You just destroyed the consoles! They're set to self-destruct!" He looked up suddenly at the roof. The entire building had begun to shake. Plaster was falling from the ceiling above, and cracks were appearing in the walls and ground.

Landon didn't say another word. He dropped the Bo Staff and turned tail, darting towards the exit.

Joe wondered for a second why there was a self-destruct system worked into the cloning tanks. Possibly it was there to protect their data or work if they were found or to get rid of any trouble makers. But he quickly realised he didn't have time to think about this. The entire building was about to come down. He had to get out of there.

Joe withdrew his shield with the click of a button and turned back around. Ralph was still lying face down on the floor. Joe didn't know if he could carry him. He didn't know if he could get both of them out in time. But he wouldn't leave him. No part of him could stomach the idea of living knowing he'd let Ralph die. If they were going to die it would be together.

Joe rushed over and scooped up his friend in both arms, one under his large wings, the other above his lower wings. Ralph didn't look like he was breathing, but this was no time for CPR. They had to get outside, now! Joe stood up and ran for the passage way, rubble falling all around him and the tremors in the ground becoming stronger. The screaming of Grim was the loudest sound over everything else happening. Joe wanted to save him. Grim was probably a good creature forced into harsh actions by a bad man, like so many other pokémon under Team Rocket, but there was nothing he could do to save him, nor the other pokémon that Landon had abandoned. He had no choice but to flee and try to save himself and his own pokémon from their fate. As he crossed the room he swooped down an arm and picked up Alaric's Bo Staff, shoving it into his bag. Of all the things he could save he felt this was the most important, if not as a tool then as proof that today did happen.

Joe sprinted down the passage way as fast as he could. Ralph was heavy, but Joe didn't care. He barely noticed the weight as his quick legs took him straight down the dark passage. Around him he could hear rock chunks falling from behind. The light illuminating the passage began to fade a little. The tunnel was closing up. Joe sped up, desperate to reach the exit in time. Finally he saw the steps back to the mansion up ahead. He took no time in being precautious. He sprinted up the steps within a few seconds, fear of the rock fall behind pushing him on. He reached the top and slammed straight the bookcase hiding the passage. Landon had trapped them in.

"You bastard!" Joe yelled at the darkness.

He looked back. The sound of rocks falling got closer. He could no longer hear Grim's screams. If they didn't get out now they would be crushed as well. With all his strength Joe rammed his shoulder into the wood, desperate to move it. And slowly the wood creaked. He pushed harder. The rocks fell closer. The bookcase began to move. The rocks fell faster. And then finally the bookcase fell forwards, spilling leather bound paper all over the carpeted floor. Joe spent no time feeling guilty. He climbed over the bookcase with the unconscious form of Ralph and jumped out of the passage just as it caved in and a wave of dust and rock pieces blasted out past him.

Joe coughed and got back up to his feet, holding Ralph still. He fled the room and headed for the front door, which was swung wide open. The glass had bene broken from a forceful opening. Joe sprinted outside, Ralph still in his arms and got as far away as he could.

When he was about thirty metres away from the house he heard a massive rumble, louder than most earthquakes. Joe turned back to see a segment of the roof cave in suddenly. Shingles and bricks fell to the soft earth below. Several windows on the lower and upper floors shattered. The entire right side of the house sagged as if it was being swallowed slowly by the earth itself. And then it all stopped. The house remained that way, nothing else happening. Only a small billow of smoke came out from the library's windows. The mansion, having once looked like a beautiful yet aged creation now looked like a ruin of what it had been.

Joe felt that he could relax now. The tremors had stopped and he was far enough away from the house now. He was out of danger. He and Ralph were safe and outside. The sun was setting in the distance. He looked around. There was no sign of Landon Labelle. He'd probably run away like the coward he was. Right now Joe didn't care. So long as he didn't run into him again he didn't care where that man went or what he got up to. Right now his concerns were with his friend.

Joe lay Ralph down on the ground and placed an ear on his chest. He could hear a faint heartbeat and feel quiet breath on his hair, but it was hardly there. He had to get Ralph to a pokémon centre immediately. Joe lifted his friend back into his arms and began to run back towards victory road.

By the time he finally made it out the sun had fallen far beyond the rocky horizon. The air was cold and still, and Joe was breathing heavily. He had run so far carrying his best friend all that way. No trainers had dared confront him this time. His steely expression of hatred and desperation had stayed their throwing hands. He'd gotten several shocked looks from the younger trainers as he ran past holding a badly wounded crobat in his arms. But he was nearly there. Indigo Plateau was just ahead. They had a pokémon centre there. He could get help there. Ralph would be okay. He'd make sure of that! Ralph would be okay!

As he approached he saw someone standing near the entrance. Joe knew who it was in an instant. Of all the deities the human race had he had no idea which one had been kind enough to bring him here.

"TOM!" Joe yelled, sprinting towards the boy of around the same age in the distance. The current champion of the Kanto Pokemon League turned to see his childhood friend running towards him, holding his pokémon companion in his arms. His short brown hair fluttered in the wind and his brown eyes stared through the dark.

"Joe?" He called back confused. "What the hell are you doing out here?... What the bloody hell happened?"

Joe arrived and stood before his friend, tears in his eyes.

"It's Ralph." He sobbed, panic and fear in his voice. "He's really badly hurt. I need to save him."

Tom looked at his friend in surprise. "What happened?" He asked.

Joe didn't answer him. His mind was too fixed on the need to save Ralph.

"Tom, please!" He begged. "Please… help him!"

"Okay." Tom told him, holding his arms up. He did what he could. He helped Joe carry Ralph inside, taking his lower body and holding it up in both arms. "Your uncle called me. He asked me to come find you." Tom told him. "He doesn't know where you are."

"I'll call him later and explain." Joe said, wiping tears out of his eyes. "But right now I need to save Ralph."

Ralph was taken to a medical ward immediately. Joe stayed with him as long as he could, but he was quickly kicked out as the nurses began to fix him up. He heard the diagnosis later that night. Ralph had a few fractured wing bones and the lacerations to his back needed stitching. The biggest worry was the trauma he'd received to his neck. The wound wasn't deep but he'd lost a lot of blood because of it. They weren't even sure if he'd pull through.

The nurses told Joe to get some rest, but he couldn't sleep. They let him stay in the reception, but he couldn't relax. He tossed and turned on the waiting bench, unable to stop feeling scared or fearful. He desperately hoped that his friend would make it through. Ralph had to survive. He was strong, he could do it. If he didn't then… Joe dreaded the idea of a world without his crobat companion. He could hardly even remember what it was like before him. A world without Ralph was an empty one for him.

Throughout the night the nurses worked to save Ralph's life, and by the morning they had done everything they could. They allowed Joe in to see his friend. His wings were bandaged as was his chest and head. Bruises were showing up all over his body, but the nurses had been healing them as best they could. He was breathing better now, his pulse was slowly getting stronger and he seemed to be gradually regaining his strength. There was a strong belief he'd pull through. A nurse informed him that Ralph would need to stay in the hospital for another week or so until his wings were strong enough to support him once more, then he could leave.

Joe was allowed to stay by his friend's side. He wouldn't have had it any other way. He wanted to be there to make sure he was okay. For a few days Ralph continued to sleep, recovering with time from his injuries. Then, on the third day, at five twenty-three in the morning, Ralph finally opened his eyes. Joe was overwhelmed with elation. His efforts had paid off. He had saved his best friend. Ralph was going to be okay.


	9. Chapter 9: Back to Normal

**This is the last chapter I will be doing for this story. Sorry that it was shorter then the others. I'll be making an update chapter to explain what will be happening next with me and my work. Thank you all for reading this far and I hope you enjoy this last chapter.**

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A week passed and by the end Ralph was well enough to leave the hospital. He was still bandaged up and he wasn't yet strong enough to carry anyone, but his cuts had healed and his wings were strong enough to support him in low flight for now. Tom offered to drop them off in Pallet Town. They'd have to walk otherwise, and it was a long way from Indigo Plateau to there. They left late in the morning, giving their thanks to the nurses that had cared for them as they left.

Joe was glad to be heading home again. All his adventures seemed to end there. But this had been one hell of a strange adventure, and a surprisingly life threatening one. Joe had wondered about what happened to Landon. Had he escaped? Probably, the door had been broken upon. Only he could have done that, there was no one else in the house. He wondered where he'd gone after that. Would he run into him again? Joe hoped not. The last thing he needed was a crazy scientist and maniac causing trouble for him.

The league had sent out police and a few special class trainers to check out the area Joe had discovered. They found the Red Path and the mansion. Apparently it was still standing after the explosion, although it was mostly a ruin. According to the returning report the library had been burned up, smoke filling the room like fake oxygen, and the entrance to the laboratory had been completely blocked off. There had been the idea of digging the rock up to see if anything survived, but at the moment it seemed such an idea wouldn't happen. Joe was glad about that. Whatever survived down there didn't need to be found again. Landon's work didn't need to be found. Let it run under a pile of rocks, let Team Rocket's experiments be forgotten along with Team Rocket themselves.

Joe had explained everything to Tom about what had happened there. He hadn't left any details out. Needless to say Tom was rather shocked by it.

"And he was just… cloning them?" He asked as the three of them flew across the region of Kanto on the back of Tom's Fearow.

"Yeah." Joe said, shielding his mouth from the rushing air. "He was trying to create pokémon stronger than any other. In some ways he succeeded."

"But you beat him?" Tom asked.

Joe looked at his friend. "You think Ralph would be so badly hurt if I'd won?" He said. "His last pokémon was too strong. All six were tough, but that last one was something else."

"So you blew the place up?" Tom said. Joe chuckled a little.

"That was an accident." He said humbly. "I didn't intend for it to blow up."

"What did you think would happen when you threw a six foot tall bat into a control panel?"

"Honestly I don't know." Joe said, still chuckling.

"But, dude, I'm glad you're okay." Tom said, smiling back at his friend. "You and Ralph. You could've both been crushed."

"Like we don't know that." Joe told him wittily. Ralph gave a small cackled from behind them.

"And did any of these experiment pokémon escape?" Tom asked.

Joe thought back to the screeching of the crobat, Grim. He thought back to the five other unconscious pokémon lying defeated on the floor as the rocks began to fall. He thought of Landon fleeing like a coward from the scene as fast as he could, not looking back for a second and not even trying to save his pokémon.

"No." Joe said certainly. "None of them survived."

Tom solemnly shook his head. "A pity." He muttered. "Maybe they could have been rehabilitated."

Joe looked at his friend. "They were wild, malicious beasts!" He said loudly over the wind. "They would have killed me and Ralph if given the chance! They nearly did! They weren't normal pokémon!"

"Alright." Tom said, a little surprised by Joe's sudden anger. "Whatever you say."

Joe took a few deep breaths. He didn't know why he was suddenly so angry. It had just come out of nowhere. He was probably tired. A lot had happened. Landon had told him a lot of stuff. He'd been through quite a bit for one week. But now it was over and he was heading back to his Uncle's farm. He could relax there.

When they arrived at Suroway farm they found Walker Glende waiting for them. Tom had called him up to let him know that Joe was on his way back. Joe was happy to see his uncle again. He didn't feel great about running off without telling him where he was going. He knew that was a bad idea now. But the look of anger on his uncle's face made those bad feelings worse.

Fearow landed and let Joe, Ralph and Tom jump down to the ground. Joe could see the look on his uncle's face. Walker had never been a strict or stern man, but the few times he'd gotten mad he'd been like a rampaging billowing hurricane. Joe dreaded those talks. Thankfully he'd had few of them, and this was one of them. Walker Glende walked up to the two boys and gave them a cheerful that was clearly fake.

"Hello, Tom. How have you been?" He asked.

"I'm okay, Mr Glende." Tom said kindly. He then took a few steps back, spotting the storm brewing before him.

Walker nodded. "Good." He then turned to Joe. "Now, where the hell have you been?!" His voice was like a thunder strike. It was so sharp that it could slice air. It was so booming that god himself would have trouble talking over him. Joe instinctively held his head.

"Sorry, Uncle." He said weakly. "I was going to call, but I didn't expect to be out so long."

"I'll say you were gone long! Just going to train at Victory Road for the day? A whole weak, and you didn't even call me. Instead I get a message from your friend saying you got caught up in a fight, Ralph had been injured and you were on your way back today!"

"I was in the hospital most of that time." Joe explained. "I was taking care of Ralph."

"Cro." Ralph said quietly. He knew this wasn't the best time to make himself know, but his name had been mentioned so he had to. Walker looked at the bandaged and bruised crobat. Then he turned back to his nephew.

"What happened?" He demanded.

Joe knew from experience that he couldn't keep lying to his uncle. It was best if he came out and told him now.

"I was out exploring." He told him half-truthfully. "Ralph and I went out training in Victory Road and we came across an unexplored area in the caverns, so we had a look around."

"And that's how he got injured?" Walker asked.

"We ran into some really strong wild pokémon." Joe lied. "A lot of them. Ralph managed to fight them all of though."

"Joe, I'm not stupid. Don't lie to me!" Walker demanded.

Tom was standing with a guilty expression a few feet back. Joe glanced back at him looking for help, but after he realised he wouldn't get any he decided to fess up.

"Oh alright." He said, giving in. "I got a letter from someone telling me to meet them in a hidden area of Victory Road."

"And you just went without even consulting me?" Walker interrupted. "Have you learned nothing?"

"They told me they were a friend." Joe explained. "They said they could explain a few things about my past… and Ralph's." Ralph waved a wing slowly, reminding everyone that he was still there.

"Can I see this letter?" Walker asked.

Joe didn't argue with his uncle. He pulled the piece of paper out of his back pocket and passed it to the man. Walker read it quickly, and then looked back at his nephew.

"Did this not look suspicious to you?" Walker asked. "Because it looks incredibly suspicious to me. Why did you not tell me about this immediately?"

"I didn't want to concern you." Joe told him. "I didn't want to get your hopes up incase it turned out to be nothing."

"You didn't think that I might worry about you?"

"I wasn't expecting to be so long."

Walker rubbed his forehead with a dry hand.

"So who was it that sent the letter?" He asked. "Did you find them? Were they the ones that hurt Ralph?"

"Yes." Joe said, answering both questions. He took a deep breath, knowing that what he said next probably wouldn't go down well with his uncle. "It was Landon who sent the letter." Joe said. "Landon Labelle. He's been alive all this time."

Walker looked at his nephew.

"Landon?" He said.

Joe nodded. "He was working with Team Rocket all the time." He explained.

Walker nodded sadly, though he didn't seem surprised by this news.

"What did he tell you?" He asked.

"He told me about you and your group, back when Team Rocket first showed up." Joe explained. "He was working as a spy for Team Rocket. He turned your group in and tried to kill you, but failed. Since then he's been working as a scientist for them." Joe paused for breath.

"Did he tell you anything else?" Walker asked, not really taken aback by what he'd just been told.

"He told me about what he'd been doing." Joe explained. "And about Ralph."

"And is that it?" Walker asked.

Joe remembered the experiments Landon had been doing on pokémon. He remembered his subjects, the violent and vicious enhanced pokémon. He remembered the streak of cruelty the man had had in his eyes. He felt that telling his uncle about this wasn't for the best. He could only imagine what would happen if that kind of information was given to the wrong people. He shouldn't have even told Tom. What if other Team Rocket scientists or people just as bad found out that Landon's experiments had worked? What if they went looking and found it buried under the rubble. He didn't want that to happen twice. He couldn't even trust his uncle with that information. He could hardly trust himself with it. So he lied straight to his face.

"Yes." He said. "That's all."

Walker seemed suspicious of the boy.

"Are you sure?" He asked. "So how did Ralph get hurt?" He asked.

Joe paused to think. "Landon challenged me to a battle. I only had Ralph with me and I didn't expect his pokémon to be any good. But I was wrong. We were lucky that we won in the end, but one of his pokémon had been rather aggressive." He told him. It wasn't exactly untrue. He'd just left a few details out, like how Landon's pokémon were unnaturally strong.

Walker narrowed his eyes, suspicious. "Really?" He asked.

"Yes!" Joe asked, snapping suddenly at his uncle. "Why don't you believe me?"

"I didn't say that." Walker told him calmly. "I was just uncertain about what you've been telling me."

"Well don't be!" Joe said, his voice suddenly aggressive and unkind. "I wouldn't lie about my friend getting hurt like this, so don't say I would."

Ralph put a wing on his companion's shoulder but Joe shook him off. Walker was looking rather surprised by this sudden change in emotion.

"Joe…" He said.

"Don't assume that I didn't think about the danger I could've been in." Joe continued, shouting at his uncle in a juvenile rage bout. "I didn't tell you where I was going because I didn't want you to worry, but seeing as how you did that anyway clearly I was wrong."

"You don't need to get so…" Walker tried to say.

"Joe, just calm down." Tom spoke up.

Joe didn't really understand where this anger had come from, but it was the primary thing on his mind. He felt furious that his uncle would be so upset by what he'd done. He'd been away for longer times. Why was this any different?

"I know that I'm the only family member you have left." Joe said coldly. "I know you've taken care of me since I was a baby, but don't try and control me like I'm some kind of pet and not a human being. I can take care of myself and my pokémon. You don't need to worry about me so much. So just give me some bloody space!"

Walker was speechless, as was Tom. Even Ralph looked shocked. Joe's face was red with anger, and it had come completely out of nowhere.

Joe suddenly seemed to realise what he'd said, and he tried to calm down a little.

"Sorry." He muttered quietly. "I'm just… I'm very tired."

Walker nodded solemnly.

"I'll… I'll let you go and rest." He said embarrassedly. "I'm glad you're okay."

Joe watched as his uncle walked back inside, a hurt expression on his face.

When he was gone Tom turned to his friend and said "What was that about?"

Joe gave his friend a grumpy glare. "Go home, Tom." He said sharply.

Tom looked a little surprised. "Are you okay, Joe?" He asked.

"I'm fine!" Joe shouted at him.

There was quiet.

Tom took a few steps back. "Okay." He said quietly. "I'll speak to you later… when you're feeling better."

Tom walked back over to Fearow, looking a little worried, and they took off into the sky once more.

"Cro?" Ralph asked, tapping Joe on the shoulder with a concerned expression.

"I just need a rest." Joe told him with a trying smile. He looked at the farmhouse and yawned slightly. "Let's get inside." He said, glancing up at the darkening sky full of clouds. "It looks like rain is on the way."

* * *

A few hours passed by and the weather didn't clear up. Dark clouds rolled in from the north, bringing a chilling breeze with them. At this time Joe and Ralph were currently recuperating in the living room, relaxing after their recent ordeal. Though to their surprise their rest was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Joe got up and opened sluggishly. In the doorway stood Winter, wearing her thick green coat, her bright ginger hear running long down her shoulders. She smiled as Joe saw her with an expression of personal concern.

"Hey." She said quietly.

"Hey Winter." Joe said. "What are you doing here?"

"I heard that you and Ralph were hurt." She said honestly, looking through the doorway to spot Ralph still laid out on the sofa and wrapped in bandages.

Joe sighed. "Did Tom tell you?" He asked. Winter nodded. Joe cursed himself. He shouldn't have told Tom the whole story. He was hoping to keep Winter out of this. She didn't have to worry about the stupid things he did. Which is exactly what she was doing.

"How are you?" She asked.

Joe stifled a yawn. "Very tired." He told her.

"I can imagine." Winter agreed. "So what happened?" Winter looked inside the house. "Can I come in?" She asked.

Joe glanced back inside. His uncle was still home. Winter was more than just his best friend, he wanted to be honest with her. But he didn't want his uncle to know certain things.

"Do you wanna talk outside?" Joe asked.

Winter looked a little surprised, but she said "Sure."

Joe closed the door behind him, leaving the confused but relaxed Ralph to watch them through the window. Joe turned back around and gave his girlfriend a bright smile.

"So, how'd the test go?" He asked her.

Winter smiled back. "Very well." She told him, clamping her hands together subconsciously. "They really liked my performance."

"I knew you'd do great." He told her kindly. Winter gave him a thankful smile.

The two teenagers stood in the cold afternoon, their hands in their pockets and their feet unable to stay still.

"Your uncle was really worried about you." Winter said, breaking the icy silence. "He called me asking where you were. I told him the same thing you told him apparently."

Joe's smile fell a little. "Sorry about that." He said. "I tried to explain what happened to him, but it didn't go over to well." He chose to keep out the part where he got angry. He felt bad about that.

"How did your little adventure go?" Winter asked.

Joe looked back the house with a grim expression. "It was an experience." He said finally. That pretty much described his feelings about it all.

"Mind telling me about it?" Winter asked.

"Not here." Joe said, looking around cautiously. "Do you want to go for a walk?"

The young couple took a small walk across the vast fields of Suroway farm. The air was only growing colder, even though it was nearing the end of May. On the horizon the black clouds loomed ever closer like invading ships on the coast on an island. And as they walked Joe explained everything that had happened over the last week.

"God." Winter muttered as he finished his story.

"I as lucky." Joe told her. "It could have gone so wrong. It nearly did. Landon was ready to kill me, but I managed to stop his pokémon, and he fled."

"Where do you think he is now?" Winter wondered.

"I don't know." Joe told her. "But I don't want to know. Whatever he does next is not my problem anymore. I'm done with Team Rocket."

"You said that last time too." Winter reminded him. "But no matter how hard you try to avoid them they always seem to run into you again." She nudged him on the elbow. "It's like you're cursed."

Joe chuckled a little. "Yeah… maybe." He said. Even though she was joking what she said made some sense to him. Off all the people in the world he was the one who kept ending up in the firing line of that mad group of maniacs.

"But at least you weren't too badly hurt." Winter added with a smile.

"No." Joe agreed. "Only slightly bruised. Ralph suffered though."

"He'll be fine." Winter reassured him. "He didn't seem too bad. He's been through worse. Not much could kill that crobat."

Joe didn't respond to that comment. His mind had gone to a dark, depressing place again. Winter's smile began to fade slightly.

"Um… Joe… there was something needed to tell you, but I'm not sure if it's the right time to do so." She said. "Considering what just happened to you."

Joe looked back to his friend and gave her a warming smile. "What is it?" He asked her.

Winter took a deep breath. She seemed about to tell him something very serious. Whatever it was she seemed very uncertain about it.

"You know that I was trying out for a place as a gym leader?" She said slowly.

"Yes?" Joe said.

"Well… I passed." Winter told him. Joe's smile grew.

"Congratulations." He told her. "Why didn't you tell me? That's amazing, Winter."

"Yes." Winter said quietly, holding her hands hesitantly. "And, as you know, this is a really important thing for me. I've been training for so long, and I finally passed the qualifications." She paused. "But…"

Joe's smile immediately began to fell. "But?" He asked.

"But… there's currently no openings available for Gym Leaders in Kanto." Winter explained. "So I'm going to be gym leading in another region."

Joe seemed slightly confused. "What about Johto? Do they not have any open places there?" He asked.

"No." Winter said.

"I thought Brice quit his position in Mahogany Town."

"Someone else has already taken his place." Winter explained. "The only position available was in Hoenn. I had to take it." She sighed. "So I'm going to be moving away soon." She explained. "That's why I came to see you… to say goodbye."

Joe looked stunned. A washing look of sadness came across his face.

"But… Winter…" He said, stunned. "You can't leave. I won't be able to see you if you're working far away."

"I won't just be working in Hoenn." Winter explained to him. "I'll be living there to. I'm moving there this week. I start packing tomorrow."

"But what about us?" Joe asked her.

Winter closed her eyes, looking sorrowful.

"I'm sorry, Joe." She said slowly. "If I could have it any other way I would. I'm not leaving because of you. But this is my best shot to achieve something I've dreamt of doing all my life. I have to take it."

Joe's arms fell limply at his side.

"So you mean…?" He said hopelessly.

Winter nodded. "This won't work out." She said sadly. "I'm sorry."

Joe felt his heart crack and fall apart like a flower in liquid nitrogen. A part of his life had just up and left without warning, leaving an opened scar behind it.

"Winter…" He said quietly. "Please… you don't have to leave…"

Winter held her head low. Evidently she wasn't happy with this choice either, but she was trying to keep herself strong. Slowly she leaned forwards and kissed Joe on the cheek.

"I need to go." She said quietly. She unclipped a pokeball and threw it to the ground, releasing her Pidgeot, Zephyr. She walked over to the large bird and climbed onto his back, preparing to fly off. "This doesn't mean I won't see you again… or miss you." Winter said.

"I know." Joe muttered quietly. At this moment he couldn't even lift his eyes to look at her one final time.

Winter closed her eyes and sighed heavily.

"I love you." She said.

Joe didn't reply. He held his face low still, not wanting to look at the girl.

Winter shook her head, and without another word she took off, flying away on Zephyr's back across the darkening sky.

Joe stood there for a while, his head held low. Tears were forming in his eyes. The only girl he'd even been brave enough to get close to had just left him for a career. His closest friend and more was gone now, and he was alone again. He felt just as alone as he did before his first adventure. With a heavy sigh he raised his head and headed home.

* * *

Joe spent the night at his uncle's house with Ralph, waiting for the bad weather to pass. Ralph was still tired, but a good night's sleep should give him enough strength to fly again. Joe didn't speak to his uncle at all that night. He simply went straight up to his room and cried himself to sleep.

The next day he and Ralph got ready to leave. Joe said goodbye to his uncle, but he didn't say sorry. It took a few minutes for Ralph to adjust to carrying weight again, but eventually they were ready to take off. Ralph flew up high into the air and flew away, Joe on his back. The two of them headed home, to Cherrygrove city.

After a few hours of flying they had crossed the border between Kanto and Johto and had touched down in Cherrygrove City. The seaside town wasn't terribly busy so early in the day, but the bright sunlight made it seem cheerful nonetheless. Joe's house was nearer the beach, though not too close to be in the sand. It was about a few metres away from the edge. There were certainly houses closer to the water then his. It was his mother's house. She'd let him move in after they're reunited. It was comfortable enough. Their relationship was slightly uncomfortable. Joe and his mother were two very different people. As a result they tended to argue quite a bit, though it was never anything serious.

However, as it turned out, today wasn't going to be a calm one.

As soon has Joe opened the door he knew something was wrong. There was a strong smell of fruity alcohol coming from the living room. Several empty and half-empty bottles were standing upright on the coffee table, and a few wine glasses sat beside them. There were also several opened packs of crisps and other packaged quick foods. And from the kitchen there was the sound of sobbing.

Joe stepped inside with a concerned face. He wandered what had happened while he was away. Had something happened to his mother? He walked into the kitchen, Ralph following at a cautious distance.

Joe found his mother siting against the cupboard door, her eyes stained red. There were wine stains on her shirt, her hear was a mess and she smelt of alcohol. As her son entered the room, Mrs Catherine Green looked up, tears still in her drunken eyes. Joe smiled back at her with obvious distress in his look. She was in a bad state, probably because he'd been gone so long with no word. He'd seen his mum in some pretty bad states before, quite often over nothing. As he'd gotten to know her he'd realised that part of his job as a son would be to help her through those states as best he could. He thought that's what was needed here. But the reaction his mother had to seeing him was very startling.

Joe's mother stared at him, her eyes still read. Then she began to shout. "Where the bloody fuck have you been?!" She screamed.

Joe knew that being calm with her would help the situation.

"I was out having a small adventure." He admitted.

"Oh were you?!" His mom yelled, not letting him continue. "And how was it? I hope you had a good time, because I've been here for the last seven days worrying myself sick!"

"I got a little distracted." Joe apologised. "I'm sorry. I should have called to tell you."

"Seven days!" His mother continued. "A whole week, and no word to anyone. You didn't even tell your uncle where you were going!" She rolled here bloodshot eyes. "No surprise. He's always been useless." She snapped. "What good does he ever do anyone?"

Joe was a little surprised by her words. He knew his mum could get angry and say some rather harsh tough rashly, but this sounded like anger that was held deep down inside of her. She sounded spiteful, and Joe didn't know why.

"Uncle Walker's help me out loads." Joe told her. "You're just drunk. You don't mean any of that."

"Get off me!" Catherine yelled as Joe tried to help her up. She shoved her son away with a surprisingly strong hand. Joe tripped backwards, only to be caught by Ralph's waiting wings. He looked really concerned now, as well as surprised.

"Mum…" He tried to say, but his mother's batting hands kept him back. "Mum, please… calm down!"

"Don't you raise that tone at me!" She yelled at the top of her voice. "I am your mother. You will do as I say."

Joe stayed quiet, trying to do his best to let his mother calm down. Sometimes not responding was better than responding. But she didn't calm down. In fact she got angrier.

"You tried to leave me again!" She shouted, sobbing more through her drunkenness. "You tried to run away like everyone else. Your father ran off with that fucking group. Your Uncle won't speak to me. Norman and I fell out." Her voice became caught up in coughing.

"Mum, I would never leave you." Joe said, looking down upon her with sorrowful eyes.

"Go to your room!" Catherine yelled suddenly, lashing and kicking at her son. "Get out! You want to leave, so leave!" She threw a bottle at him. "Go! Just fuck off, you little shit!"

Joe knew just how badly his mum was taking his absence, and he knew that he had to be calm in order to help her. But out of nowhere a sudden fit of anger bulged its way up through his throat and out of his mouth.

"Fine!" He snapped back, his expression now enraged. "I'm sorry I'm not a good enough son, but you aren't exactly the best mother either." His mother looked up from her sorrowful state on the floor. Joe glared at her with sudden spite. "Now I understand why Uncle Walker waited fourteen years to tell me about you." He turned and walked out of the room. "I'm going to my room." He snapped back as he left. "Don't disturb me!"

Catherine Green sat up and began shouting back. "Good!" She yelled "Go upstairs. See if I care." She fell quiet as she watched her son leave the room, then she yelled "I don't need a good for nothing son ruining my day!"

Joe was fighting back multiple emotions at once. He wanted to immediately turn back and apologise for his aggressiveness, yet his stubborn mind told him 'No. She shouted at you first. She deserves it.' Joe stomped his way towards the staircase, Ralph following behind concernedly. As they passed through the living room Joe's eyes fell upon a half full bottle of wine. He knew he was underage, and his mother had told him to never drink such stuff until he was the right age. But what did she know? She was the one sitting crying in the kitchen while he was the kid who defeated Team Rocket. He took a sip from the bottle.

* * *

A few days passed by. His mother had calmed down by then. Joe was still in his room, regretting the previous events of the week. He lay on his bed, his room more of a mess then it usually was. He was pretty fed up. A mixture of anger and sadness was flooding through his head and he didn't know which emotion to focus on right now. Both felt real and purposeful, yet somehow pointless all together.

He groaned in contemplation as Ralph sat wrapped up on the chair beside him. They both had nothing to do. They'd been grounded by Joe's mother who had now sobered up for being gone so long without any word.

Frankly this whole experience had been a waste to Joe. Sure he'd learned a lot about his past, his uncle's past, Ralph's past and Team Rocket's past, but was that worth this. This feeling of solitude and emptiness. Winter was in another region. Tom was working with the league, as was Rocky. Who knew where Silver and Crystal were, and he felt guilty about the way he'd treated his uncle yet he couldn't convince himself to go back and apologise. He was stuck in a rut, and there was no way out.

Joe sighed. "What the hell am I going to do, Ralph?" He asked.

Ralph looked at him and shrugged.

"Cro." He said uselessly.

Joe closed his eyes, his head resting on several piled pillows.

"How did all this happen to us?" He wondered "Where did it all go? All our friends have gone away." He fell quiet. Then he said "It makes me miss the old days, when we were just starting out." He rolled over and looked at his winged friend. "Do you remember those days?" He asked.

Ralph nodded. It had been merely a year ago. But it did feel longer than that. It was like there'd been a time jump, and Joe was now centuries in the future where everything he'd done before was long forgotten. That or it had never even happened.

"I still remember the day I caught my first pokémon." Joe muttered in contemplation, rolling back over onto his spine. "I remember the first fight with Team Rocket, the same day I met Winter. The first gym I beat. The first time I caught sight of Indigo Plateau." He sighed. "It's weird. At the time that didn't mean much… but now." He fell quiet again.

Suddenly Joe sat up, remembering something he had long forgotten.

"I know!" He exclaimed. Ralph looked at him with a waiting expression. Joe gave him a glistening smile. "I just remembered something we can do after all."

Without another word to Ralph he jumped off the bed, threw his hoodie on and rushed downstairs and out the front door. Ralph, still looking pretty surprised, followed after him as fast as he could. He found Joe standing outside, waiting for him with an excited and refreshingly adventurous smile.

"Ralph." Joe said as he approached. "I need you to fly me to Fuchsia City." He explained. "Can you do that?"

Ralph seemed pretty confused, but he agreed to the boys requests. Joe quickly gathered together a few important items he needed, and then the two of them took off towards the red city near the Kantosian Sea. And along the way Joe explained his exact reason for going there.

* * *

A lot of things had happened to the two of them over the past few days. Most of those things had been relatively negative, some of which they couldn't have stopped from happening. Winter would have still left, no matter whether Joe had gone to meet Landon or not. But only in doing this, this one tiny thing, did Joe feel that he suddenly had some hope again. He'd seen his uncle depressed and his mother drunk. He'd seen his best friend rat him out and his girlfriend leave him. He'd even seen his own pokémon nearly die. But if he could get this to work, then maybe there was still a purpose for him.

"No, no no!" Janine yelled as a young trainer in her service sent his koffing in to fight a losing battle. "You need to time your attacks properly!" She yelled at him.

As she spoke the boy's koffing was felled by a large and aggressive looking Arbok that the opponent trainer had just sent on the attack. This trainer was clearly more experienced than the Janine's student.

Janine shook her head. "What did you expect to happen? A towering serpent comes swinging at you and you tell your koffing to tackle it?"

"I-I'm sorry, Miss Janine." He stuttered nervously. "I panicked."

Janine sighed. "If you want koffing to survive past the first attack you need to be strategic." She explained calmly. "Tell it to pull off a smokescreen so that it can hide from its attacker. That way you can avoid incoming attacks while continuing to make them. Maybe even teach it a few extra moves like Sludge or Smog or even Explode if necessary. Maybe get a few TMs and teach it Protect or Toxic or Sludge Bomb. You're thinking to inside the box. You don't have to take the opponent down in one hit."

The young trainer nodded with a mixture of understanding and nervousness.

"O-okay." He muttered.

"Good." Janine smiled at him. "You can go now. Get your koffing healed up."

"Yes, Miss Janine." The boy grabbed his unconscious Koffing and ran out of the building, looking rather humiliated.

Janine's smile disappeared once more. She turned on the other trainer. "You couldn't have gone a bit easier on the boy, Hugh?" She asked angrily.

The trainer with the Arbok shrugged. "You told me to test him." Hugh argued. "So I did."

"That wasn't testing, that was destroying!" Janine argued with him. "You couldn't have given him a single chance?"

"I thought my job as a gym trainer was to test the strength of trainers who wanted to fight you?" High argued back. "I'm just doing what I'm supposed to."

Janine turned away, rubbing her forehead with stress. Two months this had been going on now. There were barely any trainers coming to challenge the gym now, most of who were either local children or inexperienced travellers, and almost all of them failed the challenge. And to add on to the suffering, the only gym trainer she had left was Hugh. All the others had quit, because of him. There was no denying that Hugh was a good trainer, but his arrogance and selfishness was the prime reason no one liked putting up with him. And Janine had been putting up with him for two whole months. She pleaded that just one good trainer would show up to challenge her. Even if they lost they could at least knock some sense into Hugh for a bit. She might even manage to recruit them to help out the gym. If just one trainer like that would show up. But she wasn't an idiot. She knew that hoping for that to happen wouldn't make it happen.

However on this day, out of all chances in the universe, she happened to get what she wanted. The doors opened again. Janine turned. She expecting to see another young trainer unfit to battle her yet to be standing there, but instead she was pleasantly surprised. A smile crossed her face.

Joe walked inside, Ralph flying beside him. The trainer nodded to her as he entered. He'd been there before, on his first adventure. He'd battle with Janine and won, taking on her little challenge and passing with flying colours. Now he was back, but for a different reason.

"You've finally come back." Janine said, sounding both surprised and overjoyed. "I was starting to think you'd forgotten the offer I'd made you."

Joe smiled at her. "No, I didn't forget." He said. "I just got busy."

"And you brought your crobat friend." Janine said. "That's great. But why is he bandaged up?"

Joe glanced at Ralph. His crobat companion gave him a small nod.

"We got caught up in a bad fight." Joe explained. "Nothing I couldn't handle."

"I can believe that." Janine grinned.

Hugh looked between them, thoroughly confused.

"Who's this guy, Jans?" He asked.

Janine turned her suddenly grumpy stare upon the Arbok Trainer.

"This boy took my challenge a year ago." She told him. "And he passed it. He's one of the best trainers I've ever battled."

"Better than me?" Hugh laughed. "I doubt it."

Joe rolled his eyes. So this guy was one of those trainers, was he? One of those trainers who thought they were better than every other trainer just because he had a lot of money and a big pokémon. Arbok was nothing to him, in fact it was less than nothing. Ralph could cut that thing in half in seconds. Hugh was so far up his ass he'd passed through his colon, travelled up his throat and exited back out through his mouth.

Joe chuckled quietly.

"So…" Janine said loudly, interrupting her student sharply. "Have you come to take up my offer?" She asked.

"I have." Joe told her. "I haven't got much else to do, so I thought training in a pokémon gym might give me some good work experience."

High's expression suddenly dropped. "You want to be a gym trainer." He suddenly laughed at him. "You? You and that bat? There can only be one Gym Trainer here, and that's me."

"Alright then." Joe said. "I'll fight you for the position."

"Sorry?" Hugh asked, his smile vanishing like a misplaced pen.

"You heard me." Joe said. "Let's battle. Let's see who the better trainer is really."

"You're on." Hugh said confidently. He threw a hand forward. "Arbok, bite!" He yelled. Arbok slithered quickly forwards, strong jaws stretching out.

"Steel Wing!" Joe called simply.

Ralph flew forwards, one wing out sharp. And that was it. Arbok fell backwards, the wing striking it in the long and unprotected neck. It made no attempt to get back up.

Hugh's mouth dropped open wider than the snakes ever could.

"What?" He gasped. "But… But… How?"

Ralph returned to Joe's side, wearing his own proud grin.

"And that's the end of today's lesson in overconfidence." Joe said smoothly.

Janine was grinning from ear to ear.

"You've only gotten better since we last met." She said proudly. "I suppose you'd have to. You did defeat both Kanto and Johto's league."

"I met your Uncle, Koga." Joe told her.

"I know." She said. They chuckled. "So, I suppose that seals the deal." Janine said suddenly. "You've got the place. When can you start?"

"As soon as possible." Joe told her. "Can I keep Ralph with me for this job?" He asked.

"You can bring any pokémon you own." Janine explained. "Though they'll have to be of the type specific to the gym, but Ralph already falls into that category. You might want to keep him out of most battles though." She added. "Most trainers won't be good enough to defeat him."

"Alright." Joe agreed, smiling as he watched Hugh leave the room, carrying his massive purple cobra in both hands as he left.

Janine smiled at the boy. "Welcome to the gym, Joseph Glende." She said with open arms. "You're gonna go far!"

THE END


	10. Final update (Farewell)

**I would just like to start of by saying a massive thank you to everyone who ready my silly little stories in this site. Thank you to everyone who follows them, favorites them, leave a nice (or nasty) little comment on that and to everyone who's been supporting my work. Even though my following isn't very big seeing a small group of people come along to support the crap I throw out always manages to cheer me up. So thank you for that.**

 **So now I should probably go over what happens next.**

 **As far I can say this will probably the last book based around the Crobat Chronicles, at least in the near future. This is mainly because I'm moving on to other things. If you've been following my page you might have noticed the link to an book I'm writing on a website called Inkitt. I will be focusing on this long term for now. It's over halfway done and I'm very eager to keep going with it. I only wrote this story because I was going through writers block with that story. If you guys want to support it then go ahead. Seeing as how it's a story I actually want to try and publish when it's done any readers and fans I can get will help me achieve that goal.**

 **I don't really plan to come back to FanFiction writing after that. It was fun writing a couple of personal stories about character's I created when I was much younger, giving them more fleshed out characters and plots, but I feel that I've passed that part of my life now. I want to work on my own stories, with new ideas that aren't based around an already created franchise. But even though admitting to writing FanFictions is seen as rather... sad, I don't regret this. I had a lot of fun writing these stories and it seems that quite a few people liked reading them. That's always great to hear. I can't say I'll be gone forever though. There are still a few ideas for pokemon based stories I could do, though for Crobat Chronicles I don't really want to write any more. I think I've done enough with those characters for now. Though one day I may come back and write a third book. No promises.**

 **So yeah, for now I'm quiting FF, but one day I may come back. Thank you to all my long time followers and new readers. It was a fun experience and I enjoyed it while it lasted. Thank you all.**


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